


Give Me A Reason

by syphrilfox



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, basically an everyone lives fic because i said so, cant think of what to tag this as tbh, lies about onions, not too graphic i dont think, ratings on this might change and for good reason, suicide ideation, tags might change as well, theres a moderately described burning in the beginning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2019-10-07 03:39:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17358239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syphrilfox/pseuds/syphrilfox
Summary: Her words broke off into a pained and mournful cry. She couldn’t tell if it was physical or emotional pain that brought tears to her eyes, but it did not matter. She cried. Tears turned hot on her flesh as the fires rose in a gust of wind around her, and another scream ripped from her. She couldn’t feel her legs any longer, but her hips were fresh against the flames. The fires reached higher once more, embers sparking on the ends of her cut and choppy hair, and as the gust faltered the fire fell. She did not dare open her eyes, somewhere inside her knowing that the fire would come back up to engulf her once again.





	1. Travelling as a Man

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on a different fic for so long that I've accidentally fallen off it and into this one. I've got this one entirely planned out, and it shouldn't be more than two or three chapters, and I've two other fics in the works after this. It's been rough trying to get this out, but it's also been quite therapeutic to work on this. I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lisa's not having a good day today and neither will Vlad.

           Even as the cool winds of late winter brushed past her, she could not bare the heat that surrounded her. Tongues of fire danced beneath her, greedily eating its way through the mounds of beech, spruce, and oak piled below. She could feel the intensity of the fire increasing with every log that ignited. The roar of the fire and spitting of heated sap drowned out her coughs and gasps. All she could smell was smoke, ash, and fire, and it certainly did her lungs no favours. She tried to stay calm, tried to keep herself from sobbing from her place on the pyre, tried to take deep breaths. With every cough her resolve wavered, with every breath of smoke and ash her hope died, with every gasp that wriggled its way past her lips her anger and sorrow flared. Had her situation been different, had she not been humiliated, hair cut, body bruised, and strung up by rough ropes dripping in holy water above the stake, she would have given the bishops and archbishop a piece of her mind. She would not have stood for something as barbaric as this. She knew she did not deserve this. This was never supposed to happen. She knew she would die one day, as would everyone else around her, but never would she had believed that she would die like this.

 

           She had never meant to cause anyone harm, and she never did. She had never meant to placed upon this stake in accusation, and yet here she hung, tied tightly to the thick post of fir. All she had ever wanted was to help people, to learn how to save them from infections and illnesses that should not have claimed as many lives as they had. She was no witch, she knew she was no witch, but still she sat accused of blasphemy and witchcraft. She never meant harm and never caused harm to the people gathered today. She was married to the Devil, perhaps, but she was no witch. She was their healer, the one who had helped many of them through the toughest of times. It seemed her patients had been all too eager to forget that.

 

           Though shrouded by the smoke that passed her on its way to the heavens, she could place a name to many of the faces gathered before her trial. Margareta and her son, Alexandrel. She had been the midwife for Margareta when Alexandrel was due over three years ago. Stefan. He had suffered a nasty bite from a wolf on his journeys, and she had been the one to treat the infection. Balc. He had been kicked in the chest by one of the horses he had been ferrier for, and she had treated his fractured ribs and bruised lungs. Catina, Cecilia, Darius, Iuliu, Magda, Flavia, Radu. A strong majority of the faces gathered here to witness her demise were those she had formed a relationship with, those she had treated and wrote letters to months and years later to ask if they were still feeling well after her treatments. People she could have once considered her friends, all standing before her and watching, calling for the death of the witch that had snuck her way into their community.

 

           She hated it. She could never hate them for believing in their fears. They were human, after all, just as she was. Most she would still call her friends, unable to give her hate a real and tangible person to harm. No, she could never truly hate the people gathered here this night to watch her burn. It was the baseless fear that the church instilled in them that she hated. The church excused this senseless violence of burning women at the stake as witch hunting. Things that would pull the faith away from the church, things that could not be explained by God, things that were not associated with God. The church burned it all in His name, unwilling to consider the idea that perhaps senseless violence such as this was not a true act of His will. She could not bring herself to voice such an idea. There was no point in voicing such an idea either, as such talk would have been considered blasphemous and would have gotten stuck in the very same situation she suffered tonight.

 

           Flames licked at the heels of her feet, and the cry of pain that fled her throat was cut short by the thickness of the smoke invading her lungs. It burned where the fire touched, skin drying and shrinking and splitting. It was a pain she had not experienced before in her life, one that not even dousing a candle with spit-coated fingers could compare to. Not the betrayal of her friends and patients, or even childbirth had been this painful, which was an incredible feat given what her child had been, and how deeply she had come to love and trust those of her village. This was a pain unlike any other. The fires inched their way up her legs, engulfing her feet and ankles, and slowly eating away at her calves and up her thighs. She could feel blisters bubble on her skin, could feel them burst and blood crackle and dry on her legs. She could smell the terrible, oily, sickening smell of her own flesh burning. She couldn’t help but scream and cry out, choking on the agony and the increasing plumes of smoke. What else could she do?

 

           She didn’t want to die like this, never like this. She’d always thought it would have been in her bed, her family lying with her as she said goodbye to them with her final breaths. She had always pictured telling them goodbye, telling them to be good, telling them how much she loved them. Burnt to a crisp on a stake was never a way she wanted to say goodbye, not to her son and not to her husband. And crying as she was as she burned, she couldn’t help but think of the two people she held dearest. Her son and husband had both been convinced to travel, to experience the world as humans would. Even in the face of her burning she could not regret sending them to live as men would. She wouldn’t trade that experience for them being cooped up with her when the world was far more lively than their cottage and tools meant to heal. Instead she allowed herself to regret not being able to tell them goodbye, allowed herself a mere moment to let loose a cry of sorrow that she would never see them again. No doubt her husband would revert to his previous ways. The memories of skeletons, impaled on countless pikes before his impenetrable castle flashed in her mind.

 

           “Don’t hurt them! They don’t understand!” She barely recognized her own voice through the haze of tears and smoke and fire. Despite her lungs filling with smoke and ash, her voice had been loud and strong. Despite the pain of fire burning away at the flesh of her legs, her voice rang through the crowd of the gathered people. Despite her fate of burning at the stake, wrongfully accused of black magic she had never even seen beyond in books, she called to them. She called to him. She realized in the midst of her pain and suffering that she called to her husband, hoping with a weak heart that he would hear her voice wherever he was. She still loved these people who thought to burn her over one misplaced accusation. She loved them and wanted them well, despite their violence against the one who had healed them. She didn’t want them to suffer like she was suffering now. Worst of all, she feared what her husband would do when he discovered her bones in a pile of ash when all was said and done. No matter their violence against her, she did not want them to be harmed by him. She did not want him to lash out at the people who would ultimately kill her, and she knew that he would. She was all too aware of how much he still hated humanity, no matter how much he had learned to tolerate it. She did not want him to end them, simply because they had ended her. Through panting gasps and weakening coughs, her eyes sought the sky that was filling with smoke, as if she could catch a glimpse of him through the stars she knew he walked under.

 

           “I know it’s not your fault, but,” she cried, allowing herself a moment to cringe and cry out again as the flames continued to eat away at her. “If you can hear, they don’t know what they’re doing.” For a second she paused, nausea sweeping through her as she swayed in her bindings. She could scarcely feel the tightness and roughness of the ropes beyond the swelling heat of the fire on her skin. Trying again, she tilted her head back, all too aware of the fire and the smoke. “Be better than them! Please!”

 

           Her words broke off into a pained and mournful cry. She couldn’t tell if was because of her fate, the fire, or the potential future her husband would no doubt plan for these people, but she cried. Tears turned hot on her flesh as the fires rose in a gust of wind around her, and another scream ripped from her. She couldn’t feel her legs any longer, but her hips were fresh against the flames. The fires reached higher once more, embers sparking on the ends of her cut and choppy hair, before an impact with the cobbles before her released a gust so strong that is forced the flames licking her to recede. She did not dare open her eyes, somewhere inside her knowing that the fire would come back up to engulf her once again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

           Not even the setting sun could abate his temper. It was foolishness, complete and utter foolishness on his part for the aches and pains he suffered. It was nothing serious, nothing that he couldn’t ignore with the proper self control and thought regulation. His temper came from the pain that settled in his joints, sinews, muscles, and bones as he continued his silent march. His temper came from the pounding headache that sat just behind his eyes and on his tired temples. His temper came from the damnable fluttering emotions he felt battering around in his chest cavity. It was all his own fault that his temper was as it was. There was no denying that he himself had been the cause of his own pain and suffering. Simple as his aches may be, he had forced himself to endure them for perhaps a week straight. Something within him had forced him to push through the pains, and he would be lucky if he could damn that something within him. The only problem was that he couldn’t bring himself to damn that certain something.

 

           The sun had begun to rise a week ago, and a night’s long walk had his body asking him- no, _begging_ him to find somewhere to rest for the day. He had considered the thought generously, having listened to his body for the past year while he travelled. Any time his limbs had grown tired and muscles sore he had listened, finding himself a suitable place to stay and sleeping his way through the majority of the day that came. But sleep had been light without his coffin, and lugging such a furniture piece around would not have been good for his wife’s desire to see him travel as a man. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t push through the pains, and he had centuries of practice of ignoring sleep in favour of more productive activities under his belt. He could have easily pushed off the vestiges of his condition, ignored the tingling that came with the sun’s rays, the headaches and sores and pains of walking when his condition dictated he shouldn’t. He was ancient and powerful. That shackle of the condition had fallen away, and was only heeded for his own comfort. The past year he had listened to that shackle of his condition, found a place to rest comparable to his coffin and allowed his body to fill once more with centuries old rigor mortis. Something a week ago, however, had decided for him that he wouldn’t be sleeping.

 

           A week ago he had shrugged away his body’s complaints and had kept walking. He continued to trudge down beaten paths and gravel roads, continued despite the feeling of battling rigor mortis that threatened to sink into his being. He had ignored all headaches, pains, and exhaustions to continue his march. To continue his journey until its end. To continue his walk home. He wanted to be home. Some part of him chided him, telling him that he could make his way home in a few days more if he stopped to rest for the daylight hours. It had told him that his home would still be there if he took his time, waiting for him no matter how long he would take. He had brushed that part of him away. Why, he still could not fathom. But nonetheless he brushed it away and kept walking as the sun climbed its obnoxious arc through the sky and back down to the opposite horizon. By the time the sun had set his body had felt like nothing had happened. And he continued to walk.

 

           At the next dawn, as the sun rose again in the sky, he had brushed that very same part of him away again. He ignored the dreaded feeling of pain and headaches and rigor mortis in favour of walking through the day yet again. The aches and pains he felt were worse during those daylight hours, but he paid it no mind. It had become painfully obvious to him in that second day of travel why he was ignoring his body’s pleas for sleep. He tried his damnedest to ignore the emotion that had spiked in his chest then, and through the next two days and nights of travel he did his best to push the emotion to the very bottom of his soul and stomp on it until it died. But every landmark he began to recognize from the start of his journey only fed the emotion, giving it the fuel it needed to take over his breast and swell outwards through the rest of him. By the time he had passed the borders of Targoviste and made his way towards Lupu, there was no denying what emotion had welled up within him to poison every inch of his being.

 

           Excitement.

 

           Beneath every inch of his skin and in every string of his muscle he could feel excitement taking root and blossoming. He could feel it seeping into his bones with every day he continued to walk, and he could feel it battling his exhaustion and pain with every step he took home. He was excited, like a child on the eve of their birthday dreaming of the gifts they would get in the morning. Like a dog who was seeing its master for the first time in weeks. Like a human husband returning to his wife. And it sickened him. The thought of allowing such a human emotion take such a strong hold in his body sickened him to his very core. He had trained for decades after his initial turning to bury Mathias Cronqvist, to destroy any remnants of the man he had once been and to adopt the new and powerful visage of Vlad Dracula Țepeș. And yet here he was, four centuries later, ambling down a dirt path towards a human settlement with Mathias Cronqvist’s detestable human excitement prickling his dead skin. Seems he had done a shoddy job of murdering Mathias. He would do his best at a later date to kill the man he had once been fully, when he was well rested and fed and finished with his stories for his wife.

 

           His wife.

 

           The thought of her excited him. The matter of why was both deeply understood and completely beyond his comprehension. He loved her, loved the woman who had appeared before him twenty years ago to demand his knowledge on healing. He loved her stubborn attitude, he loved her gentle demeanor, he loved her quick wit and sharp tongue and her never ending hunger for knowledge to better the lives of others. Vlad Dracula Țepeș loved a human woman, and it seems that was what had revived Mathias Cronqvist. Begrudgingly, Vlad would allow the pieces of Mathias to remain, seeing as his wife loved that part of him just as fiercely as she loved Vlad Dracula Țepeș. He would allow that rotten and weak bastard to live, if only to see the smile of his beloved when he allowed himself to obey Mathias’ humanities. Stars above did he love that smile of hers. It was sickening.

 

           Walking now as the sun set beyond the horizon, Vlad could not help but berate himself again. How long had he spent, locking away Mathias, crushing every friendship he had and destroying all of the material objects he had so that nothing of the deplorable man remained? How long had he spent fortifying himself, fortifying Vlad Dracula Țepeș against anything that could have been considered something that was remotely Mathias Cronqvist? How was it that one human woman could convince him to embrace even a sliver of Mathias Cronqvist after spending so long to seal the rat bastard away? He could scarcely imagine how she had accomplished such a task, and at some point during the night and his purposeful shuffling he decided he would try not to dwell on it. It seemed to be her goal to reunite the pieces of Mathias Cronqvist with Vlad Dracula Țepeș. How she knew Mathias existed was impossible, and Vlad doubted she even knew that the more human side he was showing her was someone different to him, different to the man she had first encountered twenty years prior. But he could not bring himself to stop her from reuniting him with his lost humanity. Deep down in his subconscious, he could begin to admit that reuniting with the parts of him from Mathias was an overwhelmingly wonderful feeling, one he hid effortlessly behind stubbornness and annoyance and controlled anger. He never wanted to embrace the man again, but now? Now he wasn’t so sure. It couldn’t be that bad, Mathias Cronqvist couldn’t be that bad if his wife still loved him. Yes, he could allow Mathias to live in the slight ways he had been showing himself, no matter how sickeningly human those ways were.

 

            One way Mathias shone through was through the bouquet of flowers Vlad held in one hand. With his pack tied and drawn tight across his shoulder and chest and one hand on the cord, the other hand was filled with paper carefully wrapping the stems of daisies, crocus, and peonies. In all honesty Vlad had seen nothing of interest in the flowers. They were all common in Wallachia, growing wild in nearly every field and easily found amongst the weeds in gardens. But he knew she liked them. He remembered seeing her that day many years ago, helping her tend to the gardens in front of and behind their cozy little home, smiling over invading daisies. “Daisies,” she had began, gingerly cupping the bright flower before her and smoothing the pads of her thumbs oh so delicately over its petals. “Are considered invasive in most gardens, but I can’t help but admire the way they continue to grow. No matter how often one chops the stems and destroys the bud, the common daisy always springs back up. They are remarkable little flowers, with an incredible will to survive. Wouldn’t you agree?” In truth he hadn’t agreed, finding no joy in the little spots of perfume and pastel colours that were flowers. But seeing her there, holding the flower as gently as she did while she plucked it from the earth by the top of the root, he couldn’t help but concede. They were remarkable, but only in the way they held his beloved’s affections. He remembered her that day, sitting there with her basket of daisies before her gardens of peonies and crocus, and while he knew that no physical object would ever be good enough to be a truly perfect gift to her, Vlad had found himself purchasing the nicest bouquet of peonies and crocus and daisies at a struggling flower shop on the outskirts of Lupu. He knew they made her happy, happy in a beautiful and simple way he still had yet to perfect himself, and he would do anything to see her smile when he trudged through that door as grimy and exhausted as a half dead rat. Her smile was truly rejuvenating.

 

           A slight miscalculation in his steps and a moment to regain his balance later, he found himself berating himself once more. The stumble had reminded him of the exhaustion in his very soul and of the pain throbbing mercilessly behind his eyes. He never should have stayed awake for so long, braving the rough treatment of daylight for the single purpose of making better time. It was stupid and foolish, staying awake for so long, but he knew he couldn’t help it. He had been away for so long, had missed her company for so long, and no matter how many letters they sent to one another, he much preferred hearing her voice over reading her penmanship. Strange, how a year with only her letters had felt long and grating. Every week he would pull an enchanted parchment from his pack and write to her a brief letter, sending it in the wee hours of the morn to keep her from being found a witch by those less welcoming to magic and science. And every following night he would be sent the same parchment, the words he had written the night before replaced with her own. Brief talk of patients and journeys and whatever else the two could think of flew through miles in a matter of seconds, and each night he read her letters he was reminded just how much he missed her. He missed her dearly, missed her touch and her laugh and her beautiful, wondrous smile. He had forced himself to travel for seven days and nights because he had missed her. How incredibly foolish of him.

 

           Passing a tavern, his temper seemed to lift. He knew that tavern, even in the now pale light of a full moon. His condition allowed him to see as if the sun still shone high in the sky. He and Lisa had visited this tavern a few times when he hadn’t been travelling, enjoying the company of one another and the greasy, under-seasoned food the offered there. At least she had told him that it was greasy and under-seasoned. He didn’t usually eat food, and when he did it was solely for appearances. It had always tasted like bark and paper and the blandest of mush, just as it had for centuries. He could only trust her judgement when it came to taste, for all he could taste these days were blood and her. Her smile and laughter from those days flashed in his mind. If his dead heart had been beating, it would be stirring with the sparks of excitement jittering in his chest. He kept walking, a new vitality pouring into his being as he left the tavern behind. He crossed a small stone bridge, one that he recognized from a house call he had attended with Lisa across the village. The creek babbled beneath the stone bridge as he crossed, just as it had that day years ago, just as it would for years to come. The sparks and jitters he felt in his breast grew more lively as he continued down the path, the faint tinge of frost dusting the path where the sun simply had not reached. It took a significant amount of control to keep his lips curled in just the slightest of grins. Even with many villagers tucked away in their beds, he found it within himself to allow only the ends of his lips to curve up. His mind had wandered, yet again, to his wife. Greeting her at the door, dropping his pack on their table, bringing her close to him and kissing her for the first time in what must have been a year. A year was too long to stay away from her, too long away from her for him to bear. The thoughts only improved his energy, travelling from his head down to the tips of his toes.

 

           The houses thinned out as Lupu’s church bell tolled in the distance, and he continued to walk along a fence that marked one edge of the path, protecting the less sure-footed villagers from tumbling into the ditch beside it. He was nearly home, the familiar grain of the fences they had often leaned against while they discussed herbs and stars and whatever else they could think to say passing him with his every stride. He was not far now. No doubt that in another ten to fifteen minutes he would standing in the doorway, arms wrapped around the incredible warmth his wife radiated at any given time of the day. He would be with her again soon, and no matter how much he had enjoyed walking the country as a man, he was determined to spend more time with her, just as he had in the few years after their first encounter.

 

           The break in the fence came soon enough, wood snapped and sagging just has it had been when he left. A horse, if he recalled correctly, had been spooked and smashed through the fence. He moved to walk between the break in the wood, willing to suffer his aches through thick mud and tall grasses if only to see his wife sooner. A small gust of wind rushed past him. If the stolen blood pumping through his veins wasn’t cold enough, it was certainly chilled by the scents the wind brought with it. Smoke. Fire. Burning paint and chemicals and fabrics and stone. And something metallic. A glimmer caught his eye, light trapped on the earth in a thick substance he knew all too well. A trickle of blood sat heavy in the deepest part of a footprint, the sole heavy and no doubt made from cork and wood and leather. His momentary pause ended not nearly fast enough for his liking, with a new kind of energy filling his body as he walked, swift and brisk towards the mud and tall grasses before him.

 

           He could barely feel the way the mud sucked at his travelling boots, or the way the grasses brushed past his trousers. He scarcely noticed the conspiracy of ravens taking to the sky as he moved through the grasses and past bushes and trees. A new light was beginning to seep into the surroundings, one that was not caused by moon nor sun. It was a light that danced to a violent tune, one he knew all too well. Every inch of his being felt like living ice as a new emotion dropped heavy into his stomach. He knew he should keep calm, knew that it may not be what his long dead heart screams that it is. Even as the orange light grew stronger and stronger the closer he got, he did not want to believe the worst. He could hear it, hear the burning of wood and fabric and the spitting and cracking of glass and chemicals ablaze. He could smell the smoke, powerful and corrupt with concoctions that normally wouldn’t be set aflame. Heat was beginning to touch his skin, but it was not the heat he had hoped to return home to. Every step he took became more troubled, more worried, more fearful as he drew closer and closer to their house. By the time he brushed past the last layer of bushes he could not deny his fears any longer.

 

           There in the clearing before him was his house- _their house_ , barely recognizable beneath the inferno. If a heart could leap into a throat, his heart would have been spilt on the thawed ground before him. Emotions he had not felt since before the death of Mathias Cronqvist flared to life, gripping his heart and soul and mind so tightly that it nauseated him. Their house was ablaze, gardens ruined and memories being destroyed. All of their life’s work, all of _her_ life’s work was turning to ashes before him. And she was nowhere in sight.

 

           “Lisa?! Lisa where are you?”

 

           In an instant the bouquet he held had been forgotten and his pack dropped beside it. His throat clenched tightly, as if it were trying to forbid him from using his voice. His body should know better by now than to try and choke him of his speech. He barely managed to tear his gaze from the inferno, scouring the nearby foliage and trees for any sign of his wife. His dead heart clenched painfully when there was no immediate sight of Lisa. His other senses provided just as little as his eyes had. He could not smell her and that sticky herbal scent that always clung to her. He could not hear her heartbeat or her breathing. He could not sense her in any of the surrounding forest foliage. She wasn’t outside of the fire, at least not here. His eyes turned back to the blaze, stinging from the brilliant light of flames clawing their way high into the sky. His skin prickled, magic beginning to ooze from his pores. She wasn’t outside of the fire.

 

           Unable to stop himself, Vlad hurried towards the blaze, ignoring the heat that radiated from it. Fire could not hurt him, not any more. He could control fire, could become fire. He had nothing to fear stepping into the blaze. At least, nothing to fear if it was only he who suffered in the blaze. Humans were fragile and delicate creatures. He knew all too well from experience that a human trapped in a burning stable would not last long, let along an entire burning house. They were easily suffocated by the smoke alone, or cooked alive by the very heat of being in close proximity to fire. He didn’t dare imagine his wife in worse situations. If Lisa were inside what was once their home, it was almost certain that she would not be alive for long. There certainly wasn’t any time to waste. With his own fires preparing to burst from his skin, his entire body halted at the tone of a weak voice.

 

           “Are you Mr. Țepeș?”

 

           He almost didn’t look at her, almost continued into the blaze, damn what anyone would think or say if and when they saw him emerge unscathed. But a tugging, no doubt a vestige of Mathias Cronqvist himself, coaxed him to look over at the source of the voice. He couldn’t say he was all that impressed by the woman who stood leaned against a tree closer to the road leading to the house. But then again, he wasn’t much impressed with a strong majority of humans. She bore the same wrinkles every old lady wore, a simple shawl and dress, and some sort of belt keeping the dress sitting firmly where it should. A piece of information flashed in his mind at the sight of her, however. A small tidbit from the writings of his wife, one night many months ago.

 

           “Mrs. Djuvara, a plump elderly lady, has come by to the house once again. After a thorough physical, she’s shown signs of bibasilar crackles and a fierce case of influenza.” He recalled the words, and even over the roar of his burning house his sensitive ears could pick up the crackling in her lungs and the coughs she was forcing down. Through a corked bottle she no doubt hid in one of her sleeves he could smell strawberry wine and the must of mold, the two ingredients freshly mixed together. Lisa’s work. She must have just left the house, no doubt before the entire house had caught in the fire, and found herself coming back to stare at the same thing he had arrived to see. There certainly couldn’t have been time for her to travel all the way home and back to have that bottle smelling just as fresh as it did. A niggling hope pierced his breast but he tamped it down fiercely. One rotting human did not mean his wife was safe.

 

           “She talked about you.”  
  
           “Where is she? Where is my wife?”  
  
           He hadn’t meant his voice to be as loud as it was, nor had he meant it to sound as angry as it did, but Mrs. Djuvara seemed unphased by his now fluttering temper. Pale green eyes turned away from red, the expression on her face turning soft and sad and mournful. Her response felt as if it were reaching him through molasses, his fear and rage quickly being engulfed by a wrath he hadn’t felt in ages.

 

           “The bishop came and took her away. Accused of witchcraft, he said. They’ll be taking her to trial soon.”

 

           Vlad hadn’t realized he had moved, hadn’t realized he had moved so quickly. He only noticed he was before her when his hands hovered over her shoulders, the slight gust of his movements tugging weakly at the hem of her shawl and dress, her tightly tied back hair a foot and a half below his chin. He stopped himself from grabbing her shoulders, acutely aware of his claws and the damage they would do, the damage they _could have done_ had he not stopped himself. Lisa would not be pleased if he harmed her patient, accident or not. Mrs. Djuvara seemed surprised that he was standing before her when she turned her gaze back up, but she did not seem to think there was any sort of blasphemy in his movements. The gentle breeze pushing past the inferno and the sounds of the blaze kept his condition a secret from her yet. Truthfully, he doubted that he would care if she discovered his condition now. Depending on what she would say next, all of Wallachia would know of him and his condition.

 

           When Mrs. Djuvara failed to find her voice, Vlad managed to find his, unable to keep it from wavering and cracking. He bared the fear his heart felt before her in his voice.

 

           “Mrs. Djuvara, _where is my wife_?”

 

           She seemed taken aback by how weak his voice seemed, especially compared to what it had been only seconds earlier, but she gathered herself soon enough after. It felt like a decade had passed when she spoke again.

 

           “I imagine that they are in Targoviste right now, sir. Not a doubt in my mind that they’ll be burning her at the stake soon.”

  
           All at once the world seemed to fall down around him. His heart felt as if a stake had been driven through it, twisted and turned and thrust until it left his flesh through his back. They would be burning her at the stake soon. He had not registered when he had scooped his pack back up and slung it over his middle. He had not noticed when his skin had torn and split, flames spilling forth and engulfing what had once been his body. He did not acknowledge his forgotten flowers or Mrs. Djuvara, both useless to him now. He had hardly felt the wind whip past him in a rush of power as he soared through the sky, eyes trained on the great cathedral of Targoviste nearby. Travelling as a man, there would be no hope for his beloved. Travelling as a man, she would be nothing more than ashes by the time he arrived. _No more_ , he thought. _No more shall I travel as a man._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't sure if I was going to write Give Me A Reason as one huge mega-fic or if I was going to break it up into smaller chapters. But then the time changed to 12am and I had the nicest spot to end it as a chapter so I rolled with it. It's 1:25am at the time of me posting this so I'm headed to bed oof. Let me know what y'all think! I'll be writing the second chapter very soon!


	2. Rage Against Divine Retribution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the chapter y'all been excited for: Big Daddy Vladdy comes to see his bravest Lisa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever regret typing a chapter summary? Because I sure do dasfghjk.

           Even with the lands below whipping past him, the flight felt far longer than it should have. Travelling as a man, it should have taken him a half hour, perhaps forty-five minutes to reach Targoviste’s borders. Lupu was not far from Targoviste after all. Even travelling as a man it could have been considered nothing more than a hop, skip and a jump away from their cozy little Lupu. But travelling as he was, nothing more than a comet of flames arcing through the night’s barren sky, it should have taken him mere moments to reach Targoviste. He should have been there in the blink of an eye, streaking across the sky with such fervor and panic. Deep down he knew that he was breaching the borders of Targoviste when the second minute of flight ticked by, and yet he still felt as if it took two hours too long. Time seemed to slip past him with the same molasses inspired speed that Mrs. Djuvara’s words to him had not even minutes earlier. _“Not a doubt in my mind that they’ll be burning her at the stake soon.”_ Once again her words rung in his mind, seeming to clasp onto his heart and head with such a ferocity that any human would have choked and gasped. Perhaps it was his own anxieties that slowed time so, or perhaps it was thoughts of his wife burning at the hands of humans he now deemed unsuited to life that was the cause. No matter. He could dwell all he liked on the speed of time later. While his wife’s future remained uncertain, Vlad could not linger and hesitate. No matter how slow it seemed, time was of the essence.

 

           The barren paths connecting Lupu to Targoviste had merged with thick cobble roads that sprouted their own paths and walkways, twisting like the gnarled branches of an ancient and battered tree. Houses that dwarved his own burning cottage were packed tight on the streets he soared over, no doubt sheltering people who were either too God fearing to stand up for an innocent woman or too cynical to bother. He barely paid them mind, just as he paid little mind to the few people still walking the streets beneath him. He could care less now if people saw him, pointing at the supernatural streak of flames blasting over the city. He could care less if people knew of his condition. He would sooner damn them with his condition now than hide it from them. Vlad Dracula Țepeș knew that the people hidden in their homes and aimlessly walking the streets were just as much to blame for his wife’s current predicament as those no doubt gathered before the stake were. Mathias Cronqvist seemed to be in agreement for once, and that hardly surprised him. It was Mathias Cronqvist who had contracted his condition following the death of Elizabetha, after all. Mathias had been right to renounce God all those centuries ago, for the event he found himself speeding towards only gave Vlad more reason to spit on His name and hate all those that dared act as such in His name. Surely no true God would allow this act of barbarism to occur in their name. Should the very worst happen, both Vlad and Mathias agreed on one thing; the people of Targoviste and Lupu would pay.

 

           Closing in on Targoviste’s cathedral, Vlad was all too aware of the event happening in its courtyard. From the edges of the city he had been able to see the faint glow, but nearing it now he could deduce the glow had not been from torches and oil lamps. The people and men of the cloth had begun if the smoke that rose from the courtyard and the dance of orange light was any indication. The sight of the dancing lights reminded him of his burning cottage, of how the great flames had engulfed and consumed the home he had grown to love. For a brief moment he imagined the flames swallowing his wife whole. Had he occupied a more corporeal form he was certain his dead heart would be sitting on his tongue, heavy with the fear that fueled his flight. He could hear them, the people murmuring and calling, begging the fires to burn the witch who had settled in their midst. He could hear choirs, a hum of hymns and psalms that denounced black magic and praised the will of God. He could hear the roar of the fire, and within it, choking sobs and cries. All at once he could feel his heart twist and tear in his chest of fire. He would let himself hope that the cries came from her. He would let himself believe that she was still alive, even with the context of the cries. The pain in her voice, the sorrow in her words, they were emotions and feelings he had never wanted to hear corrupt her beautiful voice. They were emotions and feelings he never wanted her to experience again.

 

           The center of Targoviste’s cathedral courtyard was soon beneath him, and with a twirl of magic, fire, rage, and power he was descending into it. The cobbles beneath him cracked and shattered as his magic hit the square, a blast of wind so strong that it nearly extinguished the blaze of the pyre set beneath the wooden cross his lover had no doubt been tied to. Cries of panic and confusion erupted from the crowd gathered before the pyre reduced to embers, but Vlad could not care to acknowledge any of them. He did not look for familiar faces, nor did he look for allies. The people and men of cloth had made it perfectly clear as to where their loyalties and hearts lay. There was only one person in this little square that truly mattered to him now. The one his eyes of fire sought out hung from the stake, ropes tight around her middle, hair torn and cut short, her features marred by the cuts and bruises spread across her face. Her head that had once been lolled back to face the sky rolled forwards, eyes shut and an expression of pain and sorrow and sheer regret twisting her face into something truly awful. Any joy he could have felt, any joy he _should_ have felt while learning his wife was still alive was swallowed up by rage. Pure unadulterated rage filled his entire being, forced his skin to stitch back together over his flames, twisted his own expression into a snarl he hadn’t used in two centuries.

 

           Now knowing that his wife lived, he was hyper-aware of his movements. His legs bunched tight beneath him and he poised like a coil ready to fly. Vlad launched himself up at the stake, hands outstretched and reaching for the post his beloved hung from. His boots connected with the stake beneath his wife’s charred feet as his hands met the wood above her head, gripping the fir until it splintered in his grasp. A resounding crack filled the courtyard, followed shortly by another cry of panic from the crowd and a weak, choking gasp from his wife. The stake began to tip backwards, his feet shuffling awkwardly to find purchase on the wood. His scrabbling meant little to him. He could care less for his appearance with his wife strung before him. Claws finding the rough edges of the rope securing her, Vlad cut through them like butter. His arms were around her soon enough, holding her tight to his chest. Lining his feet up with the collapsing stake, Vlad pushed down on it strongly, launching himself backwards from the smouldering pyre. The stake soon met the embers it had once stood proud over. When he landed, he landed back in his initial landing spot where had crashed into the courtyard from above. Shattered cobblestone and upturned dirt surrounded him, the screams of the confused and the soon to be damned rising again, but he cared not for any of it. All he cared for was the shuddering form of his wife, cradled in his arms. She is weak, she is battered, but she lives.

 

           Ignoring the people and men of cloth petrified by his display, Vlad shifted her into one arm. He pressed her to his chest and worked with one arm and his teeth to pull his one arm free of his coat. She was shifted into his other arm so he could pull free of his coat on the other side, and stooping for only a moment he wrapped her in his coat, lifting her to lay in his arms like a bride. One of her arms shifted out of the coat he had tucked her into and reached up towards him, a hot hand pressing into his frozen cheek and chin. It took everything he had to keep himself from nuzzling into her hand like a touch starved pup, and he instead allowed himself to press his lips to her palm, kissing her hand as gently as he could. He could care less that the people had seen him descend upon the church in a blaze of hate and blasphemous magic, he could care less that the people had seen him use superhuman speed and strength to free his wife of her bonds, he could care less that the people and men of cloth had witnessed his one act of vulnerability and affection for his wife as he stood there before them. Reassured that his wife lived, all he cared for was seeing them die. All he wanted was to see them burn just as they had sought to burn his wife. All he wanted was to hear their screams and their cries for mercy and forgiveness as he ripped life away from each and every person gathered here this night. They would pay for making his wife suffer, and he would make sure that they paid dearly for this act of senseless violence.

 

           “You… You’re here…”  
  
           The weakness and strain in her voice twisted his heart painfully once more in his chest, and he managed a slight nod. Looking at her battered face now, Vlad was greeted with the wateriest of smiles and a flood of tears. Even in her throes of pain she smiled at him. Even with her suffering still fresh in his mind and fresh on her skin, her smile brought energy flooding back into his exhausted body. Feeling weak in the knees for only a brief second, he nodded again, this time with more force and conviction. Her hand fell from his face, her heated palm landing this time on his shoulder and gripping the fabric of his vest weakly. Her eyes slipped shut, and she nestled her cheek into his chest. Her smile still sat upon her lips, even as her brow creased and her chest heaved and shook. It was all he needed to turn back to the crowd before him, his rage born anew. He would be certain that they paid with their lives.

 

           Whispers of Satan and the Devil raced through the crowd, all eyes on him as he held Lisa. He could feel the power surge through his body before he could feel his sclera filling with a red far richer than his irises. If it was Satan and the Devil these people wanted, they were shit out of luck. He knew with little doubt in his mind that he was far worse than Satan could ever dream of being. He barely registered the power of his voice as it boomed through the courtyard. Lisa didn’t stir in his arms.

 

           “What have you done to my wife?”

 

           “ _In nomine Patris et Filii…_ ”

 

           The bishop of the cathedral raised an arm, a cross held tightly in his hand as he began to recite scripture. The tingling in his spine he felt at the recited scripture was brushed away with ease, yet another shackle of his condition he had learned to shed in all his centuries of unlife. The scripture only fed his rage and annoyance. That had not been the response he had been looking for, no matter how taboo his methods of rescuing his wife had been. He did not give the bishop the chance to continue, voice raising with yet another surge of power.

 

           “I am Vlad Dracula Țepeș, and you will tell me why you have set out to harm my wife.”

 

           The gathered people seemed to flinch at his name. He would be lying if watching them shy away didn’t satisfy him immensely. _Good,_ a voice he would dare call Mathias’ thought. _Let them fear the consequences of harming my wife._ Vlad eyed the two men standing before him, closer than any of the crowd and choirs. The man standing with the bishop seemed far more fearful than the bishop himself, hands raised in a meager and pitiful cower. The bishop stood in silence, cross still held loftily in his hand. There was barely a drop of fear on the man’s otherwise sweaty and saggy face. And while Vlad would have been impressed in any other circumstance by the bishop’s bravery, it only served to irritate him further.

 

           “That woman is a witch, sent here by you to soil the purity of our lands and community.”  
  
           “ _Lisa_ _Țepeș_ is a woman of science,” he began, his anger just barely concealed by the narrowing of his eyes and the setting of his jaw. “And a doctor who sought to heal your kind and to protect you from sickness.” How dare he speak of his wife as if she were nothing more than the creatures who went bump in the night.

 

           “Even now that witch seeks to cement herself into our pure community. You are not real, a fiction she has constructed and breathed false life into with black magic to justify the worship of Satan and the practices of black magic on innocents.”  
  
           “A _fiction_ !” The word fell off of his tongue as if someone had poisoned it with silver and garlic. He could feel Lisa’s grip tightening on his vest, but he paid it no mind. The bishops words dug beneath his frozen skin and pulsed through his veins. He was absolutely livid. “You dare harm my wife on false accusations of witchcraft, and then deny I even _exist_?!”

 

           A breath, loud, shaking, and forceful left his lips, his chest squeezing with his barely contained fury. “I will show you and your ignorant ilk what true black magic looks like!”

 

           “ _Vlad._ ”

 

           Her voice- so weak and yet so firm, dragged his eyes from the bishop before him back down to her. Her face was twisted once more in pain, and her hand travelled from his shoulder down to the collar of the white button down beneath his vest. She gripped it tight, uncaring if the soft cotton wrinkled upon his chest. She choked, coughing again as she fought to speak. It softened his expression from fury to his own form of pain.

 

           “Please, Vlad… Be better than them. They know not what they’re doing. They’re scared and do not know the sciences like you and I. Spare them, if not by the graces in your heart, then spare them for me… They should not be punished for their fear…”

 

           Watching his wife struggle to speak brought her situation into harsh reality for him. She was injured, suffering third degree burns from her legs down and no doubt severe smoke inhalation. She was weak and hurting and in desperate need of proper medical attention before her injuries became untreatable. His soul split then and there as he watched her consciousness fade and her hand slip back down to rest across her stomach. Within himself he could feel Mathias Cronqvist and Vlad Dracula Țepeș fight over their next course of actions. Should he listen to Mathias and lay waste to the church and all those within its grounds? Or should he listen to Vlad and flee to treat his fragile and breaking wife? Both facets of himself made excellent arguments. He could lay her here on the soft earth, protected through runes and seals as he slaughtered the men of cloth and the crowd of gathered people. It would be over fast, and he could return to pick her up and return with her to Castlevania. But as she was she would not last long without proper treatment. No doubt her lungs have been all but smothered by the smoke that billowed from her would-be grave, and without proper administration of purified oxygen she would suffocate. He stood for a few moments, the bishop becoming bolder the longer he stared down at her face. She was pained, he could tell, even as she slept. The sound of other church rats emerging from the cathedral at the calls of their bishop, silver blades singing as they were drawn from leather sheaths, brought Mathias and Vlad to an agreement. Expression hardening once more, Vlad shifted so that he could move his hands as his arms continued to support his unconscious wife. He would have to be careful. He did not want to jostle his wife any further than she already had been this night. It was clear by the marks on her face alone that she had enough physical treatment.

 

           His claws scratched ancient runes into the air, streaks of heated magic hanging in the air as he wrote. The bishop raised his voice again, calling for those who served the Lord to bring punishment down upon the Devil and his whore of a witch. The bishop’s words only angered him more. Again he dares speak so lowly of his wife, of the woman who had treated the archbishop to this filthy cathedral. It only encouraged him to scratch faster. It barely registered to him that the priests were advancing on them, blades brandished and ready to strike them down. Unfortunate that they would never get the chance to try and draw his blood. As soon as the ancient script was marked into the air before him he shifted, hands returning to support his injured wife. He swept his right foot out, dragging it through the dirt in a quick and broad circle before bringing it back beneath him with a stomp. On cue with his commands, fire burst forth from the displaced earth and shattered cobble in a ring around him and his wife. It rose high above him in a great wall, barring the path of any priest who dared to run close. The few men unfortunate enough to be on the perimeter of the summoned flames earned themselves the same fate they had dared try to unleash upon Lisa. Their cries and screams of confusion and agony, coupled with the greasy stench of burning flesh sent a pleasurable ripple down Vlad’s spine. It had been far too long since he had heard the screams of a burning man. He had forgotten how sweet the sound could be.

 

           The flames began to settle, no longer rising high above his head and lowering just enough that the highest tongues of fire reached no higher than his thigh. The burning men were forgotten as they fell one by one to the floor, and none of the other men of cloth approached, either too sickened by the sight of their brethren burning or too frightened of sharing the same fate. A shame they had little choice in the matter. No matter how angry and frustrated it would make Lisa when she woke, Vlad was determined not to let a single soul leave this cathedral alive. They did not deserve the benefit of the doubt, did not deserve a second chance to live like a true man rather than raving, God-fearing beasts. They did not deserve sympathy, and in turn, they did not deserve his mercy.

 

           The stench of burning flesh stayed his hands for a moment, a brief reprieve between his words and magic that was just long enough for his eyes to lock with the bishop’s. Acrid, sweet and tangy and undeniably putrid odor coated the area around the burning bodies. Vlad did not break his gaze from the bishop, and the bishop didn’t seem inclined to look away either. The stench, thick enough to taste, sat heavy in his nose and on his tongue, heavy enough for Vlad to lick his lips and bare his fangs. A slight shudder passed through the bishop that, despite his best efforts, was entirely visible to Vlad. When he regained his voice and made a swift gesture with his hand, the bishop was more inclined to flinch away.

 

           “I do not know what I expected from you and your kind. My wife has been ever so careful to shine humans like you in the best of lights, calling you generous and selfless,” he began, feeling the fabric of his pack shift. One by one, shards of striking, reflective glass began to slip past the cinched opening, gathering to float in indecipherable shapes and patterns around him. All eyes were shifted between himself and the growing cluster of shards. It was likely that none of these people had ever seen magic used before, and if they had, they had likely never seen it used with such ease. “My wife has been the only reason for me to stop my hand. She has always been the chain that keeps me grounded, the wall that prevents me from wiping the marks of humanity clean away from this earth.” As the last piece of glass left his pack to float before him, the calm timbre of his voice turned sharp with hate. “Not any more.”

 

           With a flick of his wrist the shards swung. The action brought forth the screams of the weaker gathered before him, though it was not lost on him how the people flinched. How the people had not begun to flee until this moment eluded him, but the few that began to edge towards the exit of the courtyard were not lost on him either. They would not be escaping, not this night. A distance mirror not unlike the grand one situated in his personal library assembled itself to his right, closest to the wrist he had moved. Within the cracked mirror came the sight of the engine room in his castle, the icosahedron that controlled the great beast of a castle framed squarely in the centre. From beyond the engine he could see the lands surrounding the castle. Mountains that rose high in the distance, tall enough to conceal his castle. The valleys in which his castle lay was quiet and still, the only signs of life being the flickering of bats and the twenty thousand skeletons, impaled upon pikes lining all sides of his castle. Familiarity struck him at the sight. It was the place he had first met his wife, the place Lisa had barged into his life and demanded his priceless knowledge in exchange for her lengthy lessons on manners. Had he not been focused on the current predicament, he would have thought his heart had swelled with the feeling of the memories associated with the place. Yes… That would be where he would take her to heal. A place where none of the associates of those gathered here this night would ever find them. The place where their fates had first intertwined.

 

           “She who loved you humans so, she who healed your wounded and tended to your ills. She devoted her life to assisting you, defending you from sickness and death with all she has learned. And you repay her by tying her to a crucifix, erecting her upon a pyre, and attempting to burn her like you would any other innocent you’ve accused of witchcraft.” A repressed snort clutched his chest. He continued before the bishop could edge a word in against him. “And you beg forgiveness from your God, as you go against his will and burn those you refuse to understand. Her love for your ilk is misplaced and undeserved. But I will be sure to give you all what you deserve.” He took an unnecessary breath, as if his body were trying to level the strength of the rage rolling within him. “I will show you the true extents of black magic.”

 

           Submitting to his will, the icosahedron began to twist and turn, the runes inscribed on it shifting and rewriting into coordinates only he could read. The engine split, twenty little pieces spinning and turning as the great beast of an engine whirred to life. Though no sound echoed from this small mirror, Vlad could practically hear the screams of working metal and the hum of magic reaching out to every inch of the castle. The world beyond the window of the engine room disappeared in a flash, and a few measly seconds later the cobbles and stone of the cathedral began to crack and crumble. The screams of the crowd rose once again as Castlevania began to clamber from the depths of the earth. The cathedral fell apart as the beast of a castle rose to its full height, towers and keeps and arches catching any walls and ceilings that did their best to hinder it and tearing the brilliant Targoviste cathedral into ruins. The earth groaned a rumbling sound as Castlevania settled where the cathedral once stood, and Vlad turned his attention from panicking crowds and men of cloth to the great castle behind him.

 

           Needing only the telepathic call of their master, shutters slammed open as lesser demons, wargs, slogras, bone pillars, and far more beasts streamed forth from the bowels of Castlevania. Each of them servants, slaves to his will and all more than willing to follow his orders without hesitation. The appearance of monsters far more beastly than his own appearance caused a panic amongst the people. They startled and scrambled, each fleeing for an exit like a flock of disturbed, flightless pigeons. Unimpressed by their efforts to escape, Vlad gestured to the scrambling crowd with tilt of his head.

 

           “Kill them. Kill them all. Do not allow a single soul to leave this cathedral alive. Paint the ruins of this so-called holy house with their viscera and blood. Feed upon their flesh if you so desire. Make this house of God into a graveyard, and burn it into ashes. Make an example to the rest of Targoviste, and to the rest of Wallachia. Make them an example for what happens when they invoke my wrath.”

 

           A shifting in his arms had his voice catch and his frozen heart stutter. He looked once more to his wife, examining the creases on her face and the way her lips and brows dipped in pain. A choking cough wracked her unconscious body, and the angry ice coating his heart thawed in the slightest. Once more Vlad Dracula Țepeș and Mathias Cronqvist clashed. He knew he would not be able to participate in this killing, no matter how dearly he wanted to rip the bishop to ribbons himself. He had to retreat with Lisa, had to take her somewhere safe to heal her and protect her. But she would not be fond of this decision of his, the decision to kill all those directly involved with her burning. She had always been too good for such matters of vengeance. A sharp wit and a tough scolding was more than enough for her when someone had done wrong by her. But never had she ever raised a hand for violent vengeance. She was above such mindless, beastly things. He coveted that side of her, admired the strength of her own humanity in the face of her own death. She had always hoped he too could learn to do the same. His love for her could not stop the thoughts of how foolish that one hope of hers was. He could never rise above such acts of vengeance, it seemed, not even for her.

 

           “Kill only those who run from this place. Once those who partook in my wife’s suffering are dead, return to me. Return to the mountains. This cathedral will make a fine example for the rest of this God-fearing country. Go now, and kill.”

 

           Vlad didn’t allow himself a moment more to stand there. He could not bring himself to watch as monster spilled into the ruined courtyard, could not force himself to look at the source of the screams of humans and monsters alike. Not even as the reek of blood filled the air or as the thick odor of gore and displaced organs and fluids could he look back at the hell he had willed. The clattering of skeletal beasts, the pounding of feet and paws and claws on soaked stone, the shaking of ruined walls crumbling under the force of bodies and magic against them. He would have loved to witness the death in any other situation. Had he not been holding to his wife so closely, so gingerly with her wounds in mind, he would have basked in the sights and smells of a massacre. No, he could not linger. His wife took precedence over all else. Besides. There would always be time for another massacre.

 

           A flick of his wrist had the shards of his distance mirror following after him. Careful to hold Lisa still, Vlad stalked towards the steps of Castlevania. He was swift with his pace, briskly ascending the numerous stairs to the grandest castle Wallachia would have the privilege to house. Another flick of his wrist had the great doors to Castlevania swinging open with a heaving groan. With a final twitch of his fingers, the great doors swung shut, the slam of the metal echoing through the foyer and shutting out the sounds of the massacre he willed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea how hard I struggled with like half of the chapter's writing. I'm still not 100% convinced that it's my best, but I like it and it seemed like a nice place to end it. Next chapter is 100000% going to be the last chapter, and its the chapter that I think I'm both the most eager to write and the chapter I'm most dreading to write. It'll definitely deal with heavier subject matter, heavier than the vague massacre I wrote here. But I'll write real warnings on the notes in the beginning of that chapter when it comes time.
> 
> Also I wanted to say???? Holy fuck???? It's been like one week since I posted the first chapter and???? It has so many hits and kudos already????? Like???? What???? Thank you all so much for reading it and for the warm reception to this fic! Every time I read those comments I felt the power to push through all the rough parts of this chapter and the determination to smooth the writing out as best I could. Hopefully in another week I'll have the final chapter ready for y'all and I can murder you with the plot points from my outline the way the plot points have murdered me and the few friends I've whispered them to.
> 
> Thank you again for reading! I hope this chapter was worth the wait!


	3. No World Without You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vlad just isn't having a good day. Lisa sees something really surreal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a warning. This chapter has suicide ideation in it. Gonna say this right now, if you are thinking of suicide, please do not read this chapter, and please please please get some help. Suicide is not worth the effort, and things will get better. I'm not qualified to offer help, but I do know that there are professionals in every town who can help, and I beg you to get help if you're thinking about it.
> 
> Otherwise, please enjoy the fic!

           Every step taken backwards towards their room made Vlad’s heart clench harder in his chest. He couldn’t run to her, no matter how badly he desired to. He couldn’t stop scratching runes into the air and onto the walls of his castle, lest his magic and intent waver and dissolve. It was a spell that he scratched into the walls and air, a spell that was new and shaky and haphazardly put together. He had thrown it together not even moments earlier, slapping together the proper runes to purify the air. He hadn’t needed the spell for himself, he could barely remember a time he had used his lungs that wasn’t in tandem with speech or in the throes of passion. No, he had made the spell for his wife. Even from where he stood in the hall he could hear her weak and ragged breaths and the strangled, choking coughs that forced their way past her lips. With the wounds she sustained and the amount of smoke she had breathed in upon the pyre, an oxygen rich environment would give her lungs the best fighting chance. He had taken the few compatible runes and wove them together- purity, wind, life, and breath, to create the most oxygen-dense environment he could within their room. They relied solely on him and his intent, completely dependent on his magic and power and will. Should his intent waver, then so would his magic.

 

           Backing into the doorway of their room, Vlad scratched the final repetition of his makeshift spell, carving the runes into the air and door frame with clean strokes of white magic. The moment the runes were in place, another veil of oxygen seemed to bloom through the room, seeping into every opening it could find and saturating the objects and people within. Though he no longer needed his lungs in the ways humans did, he could feel the air, crisp and fresh and pure, slip into his lungs through his nose and past his lips. The feeling of it gave him strength, if only a little bit, restoring a sliver of stamina from the exhaustion of a week’s worth of travel. He could do this. He had to do this, had to do it for Lisa. In a mimicry of something far more human, Vlad took a deep breath in through his nose and exhaled slowly through his mouth. He needed to settle himself. His heart still clenched tightly in his chest, twisting tighter with every weak cough escaping his wife. He needed to calm down before he turned to look at her again. It would not do him well to be worrying and panicking at her bedside while she rest. He needed to keep a very close eye on her if she were to develop symptoms of a condition far worse than the one she was in already.

 

           A deep breath in through the nose, a wait of seven seconds, and a deep exhale out through the mouth. Another deep breath in through the nose, a wait of seven seconds, and another deep exhale out through the mouth. It was a pattern he had seen Lisa instruct her patients to do several times, and a pattern she herself had done several times herself during an encounter with a particularly stubborn or ornery patient. A gesture to calm herself and her patients, should either of them begin to feel overwhelmed while she was tending to them. Vlad had seen little use of it back then, unable to sympathize with humans she had been treating and uncaring of their fates. He did not care to play doctor for them in the ways that Lisa was devoted to, no matter how experienced in healing and its related fields he was. Trying it now, when a human he truly did care about was injured, seemed like a good idea. Besides, who would be hurt over a few deep breathing exercises? With only himself and an unconscious Lisa with him, no one would ever find out he had stooped to do something so human, anyways.

 

           Slowly but surely his heart seemed to relax, and his chest began to feel less and less constricted. He wasn’t sure how Lisa had accomplished such a task in just a few breaths, as it took Vlad far longer to get to a place where he felt he could look back to her. Perhaps, if he could stomach the blow to his pride, he would ask her to teach him how she had used those deep breathing exercises so effortlessly. The guise of her returning to him a nugget of knowledge for the endless wisdom he had given her was a thin and fragile one, but perhaps it could work. Maybe, just maybe, she would mistake his genuine confusion on the process as a passing curiosity? No, no she was too sharp for that. He hadn’t a doubt that she would know his exact reasonings for wanting to know the process after this night. _Assuming she makes it through the night,_ a pessimistic little voice hissed in the back of his head. Vlad immediately squashed the voice in his head beneath a mental heel. He was determined not to allow the little voice- who sounded suspiciously like Mathias- to instill his fears back into his body. Giving his head a clearing shake, Vlad steadied himself to look back to Lisa. She _would_ make it through this night. She would make it through the night and wake up in the morning under his meticulous care.

 

           His resolve nearly crumbled to ashes when he finally spun back around to look at her. Lisa was prone in their bed, brought closer to one side for easier access and covered from head to toe in bandages of all kinds. Upon bringing her back to Castlevania for treatment, Vlad had found far worse wounds than what he had previously inspected in Targoviste. The thought alone of the injuries made his heart twist again. They’d beaten her and lashed her, painful welts leaving angry red stripes all down her back. Some of them had broken into lacerations- clotting and bleeding slowly, but lacerations nonetheless. Where lashes didn’t mar her body, bruises bloomed in ugly colours. Some were still growing to their full size, others were already large and tender and needed careful supervision. Knicks and scratches crisscrossed the rest of her, some over bruises, some amongst her welts. They had certainly laid into her as brutally as they could. Upon discovering and treating all of these wounds, Vlad mourned that he hadn’t ordered his small collection of monsters to slaughter all of Targoviste. A bloodbath comprised only those who were involved would not be big enough to sate his rage and sorrow. Knowing what they had put her through when she had only desired to help people… Insurmountable rage and sorrow flooded every fibre of his being. Had he but more time, he would fly to Targoviste in a hellish blaze and burn the entire city to the ground himself. No, instead he needed to stay here with Lisa and tend to her, no matter how terribly his heart twisted and no matter how badly every ounce of his being wanted to make them pay.

 

           Lisa hadn’t moved since he had tucked her in, and while that soothed a part of him that worried for her comfort, it only set worry rampant through the rest of him. He forced himself to run over every remedy he had given to her, telling them to himself explicitly as he watched her in her sleep. He had cleaned out every wound, down to the last tiny scratch. He had stitched shut whatever injury was serious enough to need it. The burns on her legs were cleaned and lightly debrided, wrapped in sterile bandages and elevated to rest a little higher than her heart. In one arm a peripheral line dripped a carefully mixed concoction of nutrients and pain killers, designed specifically to assist her body in recovering and healing. He had ensured the air was oxygen dense to help sweep away any ash and smoke still caught in her lungs. Finally, he had tugged blankets up and over her body and had tucked the edges neatly under both her arms to keep her body at a stable temperature. He had done all he could to give her the best chances at a swift recovery. Somehow, the worry remained despite everything he had done to treat her and assure himself.

 

           Vlad felt as if he were slogging through a swamp, each step slow and weighted as he wandered towards the chair he’d dragged into the room and to their bedside. She didn’t stir as he approached, and she didn’t stir when he all but fell into the chair. The wood scraped against the floor at the impact of his weight and his abandoned jacket and vest rustled against his white button down where he’d left them on the back of the chair. He barely registered them. Nothing he had worn or gathered on his journey mattered anymore. He’d left the unnecessary layers on the back of the chair he sat in, and he had rolled up the long white sleeves to sit above his elbows. It wouldn’t do to have his jacket, vest, or sleeves dragging through remedies and against Lisa’s wounds. The pack he had brought with him was abandoned by the door frame, contents forgotten. He couldn’t bring himself to care about moving it elsewhere, let alone unpacking it. All that mattered was staying here beside his wounded wife, and tending to her body’s every whim and making sure she lived through her endeavor. _Assuming she lives through this endeavor._ Once more Vlad tried to grind the little voice of Mathias into the earth. While listening to the part of him that had once been human was fun and vindicating in Targoviste, listening to that oh so fearful edge to the very human voice of his past only strengthened the worries lying deep within his mind. He could not succumb to that fear. He would not allow himself to become the dog who destroyed the house because he believed his owner would never come back. Vlad was better than that, Lisa had made her greatest efforts to teach him to not be like that.

 

           In an effort to calm his growing nerves, Vlad listened to her vitals. Despite her grievous injuries her heart seemed to sing, skipping along strongly enough to assure him she wasn't in any immediate danger. Her breaths, while weak and stuttering with her unconscious coughing, had no indications of any whistling or roughness to them. It was enough to temporarily put the worst of his fears to rest, listening to her steady heart and shuddering breaths. But the relief was only temporary. His fears began to seep back into his body, one by one brought back into existence by the shattered remains of his panicking humanity. Her heart beats strongly enough now, but the human body is fragile and fickle. Her heart rate could drop without any warning for a variety of reasons, and with as many injuries as she had, it would be difficult to discern what the cause was and even more difficult to treat it properly. Her breathing was weak and broken by coughing now, but her body could very well give out and stop breathing all together. As much as he hated to admit it, he did not have the tools to properly get her breathing again. If she were to stop breathing, he wasn’t sure what he could do. If she were to stop breathing, he wasn’t sure what he would do. He couldn’t imagine a world where Lisa stopped breathing, not right now, not before her body would expire naturally.

 

           With his heart feeling more constricted than he’s ever felt it before, Vlad leaned forwards and took her one hand in both of his. He needed to ground himself, needed to assure himself that she was still here and still breathing, that she wasn’t dead and that it was nothing but an overworked state of panic and exhaustion that he had riled himself into. Her hand was cool to the touch, but still infinitely warmer than his own. The skin of her palms were patchy in their softness, calluses raised from where she had repeatedly worn away the skin while she was healing and working. He traced the pads of his thumbs over each callus reverently, counting each and every one of them. The difference in the feeling of her palm and her calluses was soothing, in a way. He needed to keep himself calm, needed to keep himself from blowing her situation wildly out of proportion. The little voice in the back of his head still whispered his fears, whispered all of the worst outcomes that could still come to pass with her wounded as she was. But at the very least he could continue to believe she would be okay, that he had little left to worry about. Lisa was strong, stronger than most humans he had ever encountered. She would be all right. She had to be all right.

 

           Tracing each of her calluses didn’t seem to be helping him, at least not with the constriction of his own dead heart. Rationally he knew that panicking wouldn’t help either of them, he knew that she was stable for the time being. His emotions however, refused to cooperate. His chest was tight and he kept jaw clenched to keep himself silent. Yet the fear and panic continued to threaten him. In the back of his head, something buzzed uncomfortably. It was his magic flickering and wavering. That didn’t help settle him either. The farthest markings of his spell felt strained and weak. He resolve was weakening, no matter how much he would have liked to deny his resolve being anything but as strong as stone. In an effort to keep every layer of the spell sturdy, Vlad abandoned the hand he had been holding and leaned farther up the bed. With one hand he braced himself on the bed, and the other he used to scratch another layer of his spell into the bedpost. He piled every ounce of his will and intent into the newest layer of the spell, and with the new layer finalized, yet another veil of oxygen flooded the room. It seeped into every nook and cranny just as every other layer before it had done, and much to Vlad’s pleasure, the sound of Lisa’s breathing seemed to ease. The farthest layer of the spell seemed to renew itself, and with a heavy sigh Vlad sat back down in his chair.

 

           He claimed her hand once again, this time forgoing the act of touching each callus in favour of simply holding her hand. Looking at the pure white runes he had carved into the bedpost, Vlad couldn’t stop the painful chuckle that escaped his throat. Lisa would not be impressed to see all of the runes he had carved into the walls and wood of Castlevania. It was unlikely that anyone else would see the inside of Castlevania as intimately as he, Lisa, or Adrian ever will, but he couldn’t help but entertain the thought of her scolding him for marking the walls with runes. She had scolded him once before for such an act many years ago, when both she and Adrian had fallen ill. He had carved the runes into the bedpost while Adrian and Lisa slept, a simple string meant to drive away pestilence and encourage recovery. He had not believed in any God for centuries, but the Hermetic arts of alchemy and magic was something he knew he could believe in. Lisa had felt differently when she had awoken. She’d scolded him in hushed tones, calling him a hypocrite for using magic outside of Castlevania and for endangering her and Adrian. “You have been nothing but smothering, what with all your warnings and fretting,” she had said when she was awake and able to sit up. “You always admonished me, telling me to be careful so that someone would not believe us to be in possession of witchcraft or black magics.” He remembers having tried to cut in, to tell her his fears were reasonable, but she had pressed a finger to his lips and he had obediently silenced himself. “You get your feathers so ruffled that we would give away what you are, and what Adrian is, and then you turn around and destroy our bed frame with some of that voodoo mumbo jumbo you always refuse to let Adrian practice outside of the castle.” He’d bitten out a reply, telling her how it was different when he did it, different because of the situation and because of their circumstances. Of course it had devolved into an argument between them. They had heatedly debated the technicalities of using magic in their little Lupu home until Adrian had woken up. A good thing Adrian had woken up as well. Vlad recalled with a watery and fond grin that had they argued any longer, he was certain that Lisa would have tried to kick him out of their room with an equally sharp kick to his rear. While most acts of violence from humans against him were nothing more than uncomfortable twinges, he had learned that Lisa could be exceptionally strong when it was required of her. It was only by Adrian’s coughed-raw voice that they dropped their argument to tend to him, much to Lisa’s relief and Vlad’s chagrin.

 

           Something cool and wet dampened a small patch of skin on his arm, and Vlad was glad that Lisa was unable to see him flinch as hard as he did. Looking down to his arm, Vlad had to blink several times before he could register what exactly it was on his arm. Blood, thick and looking all too bright against his deadened skin, sat heavy and congealing. Blood? Confusion lanced through him. He knew Lisa wasn’t bleeding, at least not through her bandages. It hadn’t been terribly long since he had tended to her, and even if she was still bleeding, it would take a few hours more for any signs of her bleeding through to begin appearing on her bandages. Besides, Lisa was in no position to be bleeding on him, even if she had been bleeding through her bandages. There was no conceivable way for her to be bleeding on him. Narrowing his eyes accusingly at the spot of blood on his forearm, Vlad was startled to see another drop hit his arm lower down. And then another, and another, and another, until there was a slow stream of it hitting his arm, trousers, and the edges of the bedspread. It hit him with the force of a lightning strike where the blood was coming from.

 

           Thick, stolen blood was streaming down his face, dripping off of his chin and some of it running down the contours of his neck. He was crying. There was no point in trying to staunch the flow of his tears, because once he was aware he was crying, he could feel the floodgates open. He cried, biting back his sobs and mournful sounds. He was crying over Lisa, over the fond memories he had of her, over the fact that he may never be able to spend time with her ever again. He could feel his bloody tears seep into his shirt collar, a few stray droplets running down to gather on his clavicle before ultimately staining his shirt. He couldn’t control it, no matter how hard he tried to crush the overwhelming sorrow in his soul. His attempts only made the tears come faster, dripping more frequently down onto the bedspread and his arms.

 

           He had never cried in front of Lisa, nor had he cried in front of Adrian. Not even when he had limped back to Castlevania one day many years ago, a battle against the still-thriving Belmonts fresh on his flesh had he thought to cry. The silver the Belmonts had used on him that night had been strong and blessed, consecrated to the highest degree to inflict a great deal of harm to him. But he couldn’t cry. He had to be strong, needed to be strong. For whatever reason, showing them the tenderness and vulnerability of his tears was too weak an act for the powerful voivode, Vlad Dracula Țepeș, to ever express. Instead they had cried over him, and that was how Vlad wanted it to be. They were welcome to shed their oh so human tears over him and his plights, but never could he allow himself to shed his tears over his own. But then again, this was not just his plight, now was it? It was Lisa’s plight, covered in innumerable wounds and just barely clinging to life. Surely it would be all right to cry just this once. Surely it would be all right to cry over his wife, to mourn her wounds and think of the memories that pulled at his rigid heartstrings so. He would allow himself to cry, just this once.

 

           For hours Vlad sat there at her bedside, blood running down his face and dripping onto his arms and the bedspread. He held onto Lisa’s hand, careful with his claws, and he brought her hand to his face several times to kiss each knuckle and press the knuckles to his forehead. He couldn’t help but cry as he sat there, remembering each and every moment Lisa had made his life brighter and happier. Four hundred years and counting, and these twenty years spent with her meant more to him than any ounce of his life before her. He recalled the time that she had dragged him to the market with her, when she had needed to restock their cozy little cottage with vegetables and meats. She had asked him to find her the strongest onions available. She had always enjoyed the sharp taste of onions in soups and stews, though Vlad was never sure why. When his eyes had begun to water up with blood during his search, Lisa had swept in to save him, assuring the superstitious Lupu vendor that it was a rare side effect of sustained exposure to onions. “It’s a very rare condition!” she had stated matter-of-fact while wiping at his eyes with a small handkerchief. “Over-exposure to the flesh of an onion can sometimes cause damage to those who are unwell, and veins can burst and bleed in the nose and eyes.” For a superstitious farmer peddling his wares, the explanation was more than enough. The very idea of bleeding from his eyes and nose over simply handling onions had been a shocking one for Vlad, and one that he had pondered with an inspired curiosity for the rest of their outing. As soon as they had returned to their little cottage, he had questioned her on the subject, asking her about how she came to know such a fact when she had seemingly spent no more time with onions than he had. To that she had laughed, a smile brighter than the sun crossing her features. “Of course that’s not real. You’re always so pushy about keeping your condition a secret that I had to make up some quick medical excuse. You’re welcome, by the way.” He had felt mortified at the time, believing her quick-witted lie, but thinking upon it now brought a kind of joy to his heart that he knew he would cherish for the rest of his undead life. There were other, far less embarrassing moments that he knew he would cherish.

 

           He recalled the day she had woken him up for a birthday party for him. She had been a few days early, as he had been rather vague about when he was born, but the gesture had been a moving one. She had set him up a simple party, one where she had managed to pull two pints of her own blood and set it aside for him. Breads, cheeses, wine, and a small cake had been presented to him as well. Though she had picked the wrong day in mid-May, it had cemented into his skull just how much Lisa valued him. He recalled the night Lisa had stayed awake for him, before they had married, to tend to his wounds. He had staggered in like a dying dog after that bitter fight with the Belmonts, and she had forcibly tended to each wound until his own natural healing factor could truly begin the process of recovery. She’d put up with his every angry and frustrated growl, dealt with his every nudge away and ignored his bitter complaints that he would be fine without her treating him. He had submitted eventually, agreeing although begrudgingly that it would be excellent practice for her to tend to an actual being instead of practicing on mannequins and dummies. That was perhaps the first and last time she had treated him, but she had teased him once that he made excellent practice for dealing with pushy and disagreeable patients. Then he had laughed, loud and unrestrained and joyous. Now he could barely laugh, throat clenched uncomfortably tight with his crying.

 

           By the time the sun was peeking over the horizon, Vlad had cried himself dry. His body ached from the trembling and clenching of his muscles while he tried to restrain himself from ugly crying the way a widower would in the cover of the night, and his eyes stung from the metallic and salty tang of his bloody tears. As the sun crept higher into the sky and pooled more and more through the window across from the bed, the aches Vlad felt only became worse. He had pushed himself too hard. The headache that had been tormenting him for the past week came rushing back, pounding harshly against nearly every surface of his cranium. The weakness of his muscles and joints grew greater as rigor mortis once again tried taking hold of him. But still he could not succumb to his body’s desires. It had been different, during the week. He had believed that he could push through the week because his nonstop travel would take him home faster, because he believed that Lisa would be waiting there for him with open arms, ready to take him to bed and listen to him tell her of all of the things he had witnessed in his yearlong travels. Now he forced himself to stay awake because of her condition, because of her wounds, because of her breathing. While she hadn’t coughed in the hours he had been crying, she hadn’t seemed to get much better than that. He couldn’t leave her like this, couldn’t risk falling asleep with her like this in fear that she would no longer be here when he woke. She needed him now as much as he needed her. He couldn’t obey the sun’s command over his body, no matter how desperately he wished to.

 

           Shifting his elbows on the bedspread, Vlad was greeted with a brand new discomfort. The bedspread below his head was sopping wet, stained red from the tears he couldn’t be bothered to wipe away. It was an accident, a mistake that he allowed because of his grief. How foolish of him. Though normally his bloody tears wouldn’t have been a factor in any kind of injury, the stolen blood that had fallen from his eyes would prove to be dangerous, should it seep into the bedspread far enough to come into contact with Lisa’s wounds. With as weak and injured as she is, it wouldn’t take much for her to contract a very serious infection. Vlad had no intentions of allowing his own weakness to be the cause of an infection, no matter how broken he felt inside over her wounds. For a moment he hesitated, eyes trailing back up to Lisa’s face. Though her brows were still drawn close, her face had relaxed somewhat.

 

           Abandoning her hand back on the bed, Vlad pulled the bedspread off of her ever so carefully. Thankfully the sheets beneath the comforter hadn’t yet become stained. They were still as white as the day he had them made. He left the sheets over her and tossed the sopping comforter onto the floor. A new comforter was produced from a small closet, the green and gold fabric pulled down from the highest shelf. And after giving the comforter a quick shake to rid it of any dust, Vlad draped the heavy comforter over his wife. She didn’t stir as he ever so gingerly tucked her in, and perhaps that was for the best. It did not ease the sorrow and worry in his heart, but it was good that she was able to rest. She would need a great deal of it, should she ever make it through these terrible wounds. Scooping up the soaked bedspread, Vlad turned to the door and hesitated. He glanced back at her once more, taking in the sight of her face as she slept. And then he turned and left the room, determined to stay strong and continue tending to her, no matter how often tears threatened to fall from his eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

           She isn’t sure what has happened. She can’t recall where she is, or what her circumstances were prior to her current situation. He mind felt as if it were lagging, struggling to keep up with thought like a wounded dog struggles to keep up with its master. Not that she had much to think about. All of her thoughts felt as if they were being suppressed and smothered, and what little coherent thought she had was soon swept up and away before she could commit it to her memory. Had she been more aware, she would have found this to be disturbing and distressing. For now, at least, the lack of thought was soothing. She felt as if she were floating in a void, not quite flying but not exactly grounded either. There was sound, that much she knew, but it came through a haze, filtered and distorted to the point of which she could not recognize exactly what the sounds were or what was making them. But that doesn’t matter much, not here, not now. If anything, the haze that filtered the sounds around her was beneficial. The void she was floating through seemed to want to drag her down, whichever direction down might be. It was comforting, and damn near intoxicating, whatever this void was. A distant part of her believed it to be sleep. Sleep. She had to have been sleeping. It was unlike any other sleep she had felt before, but this must be some form of sleep. Sleep is good. Sleep recharges the mind and body, heals wounds and suspends traumas. She could sleep here like this, she manages to think. She likes the idea of sleep.

 

           But sleep doesn’t come to whisk her away like her subconscious believed it to. She did not descend further into the void to be enveloped by the temptresses of sleep singing to her. Instead, sensation began to bloom through her. It was slow, incredibly slow. So slow that she didn’t notice that she was beginning to feel things again until damn well nearly every inch of her was tingling. Tingling? That’s new. Why does her body feel like pins and needles? Her thought was still impeded, too shot to process or remember any ideas as to why she would be feeling pins and needles like this. She couldn’t see, nor could she really register her surroundings, so why did her body feel like this? She tried to think, desperately so, but the filtered noise only seems to get louder. Well, that’s not ideal. Not unpleasant in any way, but not favourable. Well, perhaps she could save her questions for later.

 

           Later does not come fast enough, or perhaps it comes all too soon. She’s uncertain how fast time is moving in this weird void of hers. The tingling that had spread across her body soon began to change. From fuzzy pins and needles it turned to aches and stinging and throbbing and heat. Thoughts are still muddied, but slowly her coherence is being returned to her. At first its fleeting, thoughts staying long enough for her to process them before she forgets them all over again. But eventually thought returns to her, and seems to stay with her long enough to have a true train of thought. Pain and aches and stinging and heat all over her body. Parts of her feel very numb, while other parts of her are far too sensitive. Why? Pain. Was she injured somehow? Yes, yes she had to have been injured somehow. But how, exactly? It must have been bad if her whole body felt like this.

 

           Vague memories of unbearable heat and painful chills seeped into her mind, followed closely by impacts and… and arms, wrapped around her. A jacket, wrapped around her. Oh, oh yes, she remembers that bit. She remembers a face, hazy through her tears but unmistakably black and white in contrast. Her… Her husband, yes, that was her husband. That was Vlad. She remembers him, though the memories of him are sluggish through her mind. He must have carried her home after finding her wounded to tend to her, or perhaps to get someone to tend to her.

 

           He had carried her home.

 

           Lisa opened her eyes, and regret doing so immediately afterwards. Compared to the void she had been listlessly floating in, the room around her was far too bright. Her eyes slipped shut, and the light weakened into a faint red glow through her eyelids. All too quickly she was dumped onto something soft, covered in something warm. Sensations other than pain reached her, but they were still hazy at best. Slowly her eyes adjusted, and she cautiously cracked her eyes open once more. This time she was prepared, and the light did not hurt her eyes in the way that it had before. It was still far too bright for her liking, but at least it did not hurt.

 

           She was lying on her back, that much she knew. A stone ceiling hung high above her, though it seemed to be slowly inching away, higher and higher into the sky. Why was it running from her? Why are her ears ringing? For a moment she felt as if time were stuttering around her, flash freezing and thawing with every second and with every blink. She was very incredibly aware of the air swirling in her lungs and escaping in jets out her nose.

 

           Rather suddenly, it was made very clear to her that she was on some kind of pain killer. A hallucigen, perhaps? That would explain why she felt all of these unnecessary sensations. That would explain why her thoughts were so sluggish and muddied, and why only now she was aware of her pain when earlier she had been so unclear as to why she was feeling pins and needles all throughout her body. Her moment of clarity was gone as quickly as it came, but at least now she knew of her current circumstances. With her body and mind as incapacitated as they were, it was all she could do to stare up at the ceiling in silence and watch as the ceiling run from her and return like a nervous dog. She could wait until the feelings and intoxication passed. Then she could learn more of her situation and begin the necessary steps to treating herself. That alone, however, took far longer than she was comfortable with.

 

           While the exact time was still a mystery to her, Lisa eventually felt the medication wear off. Her body soon came back to its senses, and every inch of her was no longer hyperaware and simultaneously stuffed to the brim with cotton. But at the very least the sun shining in from the window near her could tell her that a substantial amount of time had passed. The bright light that had once been pouring into the room was now duller, though still noticeably bright. If she had to make a guess, Lisa would say that perhaps five hours had passed, from early morning to a little passed midday. She didn’t know the specifics, but that seemed to be right, at least to some extent.

 

           With her faculties returned to her, Lisa could take better survey of herself and her surroundings. Tilting her head towards the window, she could feel a stiffness stretch through her neck and the top of her spine. Though a little painful, it gave her an idea of how gentle she would have to be while moving. Beyond the thin inner curtains she could see the all too familiar valley of pikes and the nearby mountains. She knew these sights all too well. She had seen them all when she had first made her journey here. Initially frightened by the upwards count of twenty thousand bleached white skeletons impaled upon row after row of pikes, the sight was comforting now. They were away from Lupu. They were away from Targoviste. They were hidden safely away in the mountains, the sentient walls of Castlevania hiding them from view and protecting them from whatever may come to pass. She doubted there was a place safer for her to rest and recover than within the walls of Castlevania, especially with what she remembered. No doubt all of little Lupu and Targoviste would be looking for Satan and his witch bitch wife.

 

           Distracted momentarily by the sights beyond the window and the twinges in her neck, Lisa was perturbed by the sound of dripping. Normally there wasn’t any dripping in Castlevania, at least not in the bedrooms. Dripping was common in the lower levels of Castlevania, the places Vlad had all but begged her not to explore and the places she was much too frightened to explore. She also recalled the dripping in some of the larger bathrooms and communal style baths. There were so many luxuries in Castlevania that Lisa had never seen anywhere else before, and the items Vlad had referred to as showerheads seemed to be leaky, to the point of which droplets of water would fall from the small holes in the pipe cap and onto the beautifully tiled floors. Sometimes, when it rained, water would drip down from the various structures scattered about the castle’s exterior. More often than not something high above the room Vlad and Lisa had named their Master Bedroom would let water run off of it in heavy little drops, each of which landed on the sill of their window. Dripping wasn’t necessarily uncommon in Castlevania, but the current dripping she heard did not match up with any of the requirements. She wasn’t in one of the basement levels, she wasn’t in one of the communal baths, and it most certainly wasn’t raining outside. Confused, Lisa turned her head to glance wearily around the room, searching for the source of the dripping. It most certainly wasn’t the source she would have ever believed she would see.

 

           Sitting like a marble statue at her bedside was Vlad. His head was bowed, sable hair falling around him like a curtain, and his back was ramrod straight. His arms were just as stiff as his back, and from where she was lying, she could see how his hands were twisted and clenched into a towel laying on his lap. None of that was truly surprising to her. She had seen both Adrian and Vlad fall asleep in a few dozen strange places in her years with them. Finding the two supernatural loves of her life sleeping in odd positions was all too familiar to Lisa, and this position was certainly no different. It was the colour staining the towel on Vlad’s lap that surprised her. It was soaked through in the center, the red looking almost black against the snow white of the towel’s edges. Blood. Blood was seeping into the towel from where it dripped, no doubt off of Vlad’s face.

 

           At first she was startled. She didn’t understand why he was bleeding, and why he seemed to have been bleeding for so long. Looking over him, Lisa couldn’t make out any obvious wounds. No blunt force trauma, no bloodied burns, no lacerations or cuts or welts or burst blisters. It was unlike Vlad to get harmed in any kind of fight he picked to begin with, and it was even less like him to forcibly stop his supernatural healing. He knew better than anyone that a bleeding wound was a dangerous wound. Next she felt fear. She knew she was injured, and badly by the feeling of her body now that the pain killers had worn off. The clergymen had dragged her off from her little home in Lupu, and paraded her all throughout Targoviste. People had stoned her before the clergymen dealt her punishments. Whipped, beaten, and tied to a stake for her final judgement. She oh so clearly recalls the feeling of the fires eating away at her flesh, licking up her legs and pressing searing kisses to her hips. She knew how terribly she had been wounded. She also knew how much she had meant to Vlad. He had told her once that a world without her love was a world that he had no desire to live in. With as wounded as she was, she had little doubts that he would have tried something foolish, leaving Adrian to come home to many terrible and nasty surprises. His admittance had also been a threat to himself, in a way. Though he did not say it to her, she knew, reading between his carefully chosen words, that he would follow her to the grave. But that idea was swiftly brushed under the rug. Had he truly believed she had perished, then she wouldn’t be lying comfortably and drugged to hell and back in their bed. He wouldn’t have been sitting there killing himself while she still lived.

 

           Crying. Vlad was crying. She had never seen him cry before, no matter how many times he had accidentally hurt himself, no matter how many times he had returned home with a limp and healing wounds. Not even when Adrian was born had he cried, though he appeared to have been damn well close to doing so. She had, however, seen Adrian cry. She had seen him cry many times. Tears made of blood had slid down her little boy’s cheeks, and the first time she had seen it she had flown into a panic. Vlad had assured her later when Adrian had been soothed and put to bed that vampires bled from the eyes instead of crying tears of water and salt. Adrian had taken after his father in that regard, at least more often than not, but seeing her little boy sob through blood could never have been as jarring as seeing her husband sob through blood.

 

           For a moment that felt like an eternity, Lisa didn’t know what to do. It felt almost too vulnerable, too surreal to see Vlad cry. If he had ever cried in the twenty years they had been together, he must have hidden it from her in places she had never dared to venture. The sense that she shouldn’t be watching him mourn pulsed through her, paralyzing everything but her lungs. Eventually, however, she found the strength to move her hand. Very carefully she reached out and cupped his cheek, her thumb swiping at the trails of cool blood running down his face.

 

* * *

 

 

           This is all he can allow himself. Head bowed, eyes squeezed shut, body stiff and hands clutching the towel he had placed upon his legs. He can’t let himself go any further than this, he won’t let himself go any further than this. The rigor mortis trying to take hold in his arms and legs would have to settle for only claiming his spine. The pain in his joints and muscles and sinews and bones was something he would simply have to tolerate. The throbbing headache, now approaching migraine levels of pain, was something he would simply have to try and ignore. The sun and his exhausted body be damned, he could not and would not allow himself anything more than the reprieve he was already indulging in. He needed to be awake and aware. He doesn’t want to think what would happen if he were to fall asleep now.

 

           But he was doubting himself.

 

           He had left Lisa in their shared room when he had left to tend to the bloody bedspread, believing he could spare a few minutes of his time to send it away and collect supplies. Well, more supplies than the ones he already had in the room. He was anxious. This had never happened before. He never had to see Lisa so horribly wounded before. She’s had concussions before, and she’s even broken a leg before, but nothing as life threatening as this. Never had he ever been forced to soar through the sky in a fit of anticipation and rage, never before did he have to peel her from a stake, never before did he have to tend to so many burns and lacerations and welts and bruises. He’s treated them before on humans many centuries ago, back when he would take favours from people or be asked assistance from his vassals. But never had he dealt with all four classes of wounds on one person alone. In theory he knew exactly how to treat every single wound on her, and that in theory he should have nothing to fear.

 

           But what if she doesn’t wake up?

 

           He hadn’t meant to let his fears run rampant in him while he was depositing the soiled bedspread in one of the numerous laundry rooms scattered about Castlevania. He hadn’t meant to put such little faith in Lisa’s will to survive. She was a strong willed and stubborn. She wouldn’t let herself fade from that room while he was away, nor would she allow herself to perish without having lived another forty or fifty years. She loved him, had made sure to tell him at least once a day when they were together, before he left to travel. Surely she wouldn’t abandon him here and venture somewhere Vlad knew that he could not follow. The love she had pronounced to him day in and day out for very nearly twenty years was strong, made only stronger by each time she had assured him that she loved him. She wouldn’t pass here in her sleep, she couldn’t pass here in her sleep.

 

           But what if she passed anyways?

 

           The entire time Vlad had been collecting the extra supplies he needed to tend to her, he swore he could hear her heart beating and her breathing. He could hear the life in her no matter where he went, able to keep himself and his magic focused with every beat of her heart and every whisper of her breath. She was fine, he had told himself. There is nothing to worry about. She would wake when her body was ready, he had told himself. Wounds like hers do not heal in a matter of hours, after all. It would undoubtedly take months for her to recover completely. He just needed to be patient and listen to her vitals.

 

           But what if that isn’t her heart? But what if that isn’t her breath?

 

           The fear that had impaled him at that thought was far stronger than his resolve. All at once he had pulled his senses in, blocking out anything that wasn’t in the immediate vicinity of one of the many supply closets he had raided. Still he had heard a heartbeat. Still, he had heard breathing. Leaving the supplies he had gathered on a small shelf, Vlad had covered his ears with his palms and pressed, blocking out even the sounds in the room around him. Still he heard breathing and a heart beating. The fear growing in him lanced his heart. Frantically he pressed his fingers to his throat, searching for a pulsepoint. He felt none, no matter how long he had searched for it. He focused on his chest, focused on his lungs. They were musty and still, filled with stale air from when he had first warded their room with the spell. And yet he could still hear the breathing and he could still hear the heart beating.

 

           Why?

 

           In a panic he had gathered his supplies once more and shuffled his way back to the bedroom, forcing Castlevania to twist and turn so that his trip was cut in half. Rushing back into the room, Vlad could still hear the beating heart and the breaths. It had to be hers, right? She had to be living still, she just had to be. Nearly dropping his supplies on the floor, Vlad scrambled to press his finger to the pulsepoint on Lisa’s neck. It thumped weakly beneath his fingers, and yet his chest tightened sharply. If he could feel her pulsepoint, why could he not believe it? Why could he not believe that it truly was his wife’s heart beating beneath her skin?

 

           Vlad didn’t have the answer. Instead, rich red had began to spill from his eyes yet again. He lurched backwards, all too careful with his claws around Lisa’s throat, and scrabbled at his own throat yet again. There was no pulse beneath his pallid flesh. Hands shaking and eyes blurring through the crimson, Vlad choked back a sob. What is happening? Why can’t he believe that his wife’s heart is still beating? What was stopping him from believing she still lived? He still had no answers for such a question.

 

           Forcing his body to obey, Vlad wiped his eyes on his arm, red smearing across his face and skin, before he settled down to tend to her. He had pushed every thought from his mind and dutifully pulled bandages away from wounds so that he could tend to them and redress them. Wounds were gently debrided once again, topical ointments to kill any pain and threatening bacteria slathered on the wounds, and every wound was bound once more in bandages. He had to keep himself steady, had to keep his arms from shaking and hands from trembling. Any misstep with his ministrations could mean another wound for him to treat, one that could be administered by the careless handling of claws. She had more than enough to heal from, she did not need a scratch by his hand as well. But it did not abate the fear within him.

 

           Sitting heavily in the chair at her side once again, all thoughts and fears came rushing back. He could not believe she was alive, no matter how hard he tried. She has not awoken, she has not responded to his treatment, and she has not moved since he had first placed her into that bed to rest. He had tried to assure himself it was the painkillers, that she was incapacitated medically until the medications wore off. It’s better, he knew, that she stay asleep so that she could recover her strength more completely before actually waking up. It would be bad to have her wake up and strain herself. Her lack of response was good. He tried to convince himself that her lack of response was for the best. Her lack of response simply meant that she was healing in that ever slow way that only humans could muster. Still it could not soothe his fears.

 

           He’s scared.

 

           The thought strikes him harshly in the face like the ringed palm of an intoxicated Belmont. _He’s scared._ He realizes dimly, seating stiff in his chair with head bowed and crimson spilling down his cheeks, that this is the most scared he has ever been in the four hundred years he’s spent as a vampire. A very small part of him- some shattered remain of Mathias, perhaps- laughs at the fact. He had never felt fear when he was tearing all he loved as Mathias apart, he had never felt fear facing off against Leon or any of his snivelling Belmont descendants, he had never felt fear going up against civilians, hunters, and other strigoi alike, armed with holy water, garlic, stakes, consecrated weapons, silver, sunlight. He had never felt fear during the harshest battles of his life, always marching with his head held high, both sets of fangs bared and claws at the ready. And yet the thought of losing one human woman had shaken him to his core. Losing Lisa had shaken him to his core. He is scared of losing the one human who had ever justified his tolerance of the rest of the species, scared of losing the one human who had been the right mix of piss, vinegar, snark, and charm to quell his hand from ending her on the spot, scared of losing the human that, through all better judgements, decided that she loved him for who he was. He’s so incredibly scared of losing Lisa.

 

           He loves her. Vlad loves her so much that he cannot begin to think of the last time he had felt love bloom through him this strongly. In all of his undead life, no human had ever snared his heart in such a way before. While Vlad would begrudgingly admit he did love Belmonts, it was a different kind of love. His love for the hunters was a love of stupidity and bravery, mixed together as one. The love of a fight Vlad is certain he could have fun with, and certainly never lose. Vlad has loved humans before, but never like this. They had simply been things to rule over two centuries ago. Little toys he could twist into doing what he wanted with a simple flash of his fangs and a snarl, pieces of meat that he could ever so easily drain the blood right out of when he felt even a twinge of hunger. Admittedly, Vlad held no love for his fellows, finding no interest in kin with senseless politics and a useless society. While having territory than none could enter was wonderful, he had no interest in others of his breed. No, his love for Lisa was a very special one indeed. He had no desires to drain her of her lifeblood simply for a meal. He had no desires to manipulate her into doing only as he pleased. He did not wish to fight her for the thrill of killing an opponent and emerging victorious. He loved her for all of her quirks and passions, loved watching what conclusions she could draw, how she could solve problems without a lick of violence. He loved spending time with her, seeing her smile, hearing her laugh, watching her back arch in bliss and the way she simply spoke to him. He loved the way she loved him, cautious and careful of his condition, yet ever so boldly and bravely in a way no Belmont could ever hope to be. And he loved to love her, to listen to her, to spend time with her, to engage in things only humanity would find enjoyable, to live as a human once more. He meant it with all of his being when he told her that he loved her, and deep down he knew that she felt the same way. More tears than before slip down his cheeks, and subconsciously Vlad folds a clean towel to catch his tears rather than have them ruin his pants and the floors. A world without her is no world for him to live in, he thinks.

 

           That thought slaps him just as harshly as the first. At first it hits him how sincerely he had thought it. If Lisa were to slip away in the bed before him- if she hadn’t already, that is- then Vlad was certain that he would slip away after her. There were many ways he could do so. He could simply drive a stake through his own heart, right here by her bedside. He could load his veins with liquid silver and mercury, burn his undead heart to the point of no recovery. He could starve himself, refuse anything for years upon years until his body finally gives out. He could simply plunge his hand into his own chest and rip out his own heart. He could always track down a hunter with a grudge, stage a fight, and allow them to kill him. Absently he thinks that after the burning of the Belmont estate the clergymen had allowed one to live. He could always instigate a battle with the surviving Belmont, who surely would be as old as Adrian by now, if not older, and allow Leon’s spirit to rest at the thought of a Belmont finally ending the beast who had taken it all from him.

 

           Adrian.

 

           After thinking of all the ways to end himself, the thought slaps him with how selfish it would be to do so. What about Adrian? What would Adrian come home to? Much like Vlad had been persuaded to travel, Lisa had packed Adrian’s bags and told him to experience a human world that he never would have seen from within the halls of Castlevania, or tucked away in the tiny house they had shared in Lupu. What would Adrian think, finding the house in nothing but ashes? What would Adrian think, running home to Castlevania, only to find his mother deceased in bed and bandage, and his father rotting and ash with a stake through his heart? Vlad reminded himself that he was not the only one who loved Lisa so wholeheartedly. Vlad knew that Adrian loved his mother more than him, and Vlad found that to be acceptable. He had been the same with his own mother when he was but a human child, after all, and having Vlad Dracula Țepeș be one’s father certainly wouldn’t help with someone as soft and feeling as Adrian. Should Lisa pass, it would be incredibly unfair of him to force Adrian to bury two parents instead of just one. No, Adrian shouldn’t have to bury either of his parents, let alone the both of them. It would be selfish to kill himself when Adrian was still out and enjoying himself as a human would. It would be selfish to follow Lisa into death and to leave Adrian behind.

 

           But he can’t help it. Vlad couldn’t stop the thoughts from returning to him, couldn’t stop the thoughts from running rampant in his head. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t live without Lisa in his life. He couldn’t live with Lisa dying like this, not like this. When she’s old and grey and heaving her last breaths, he thinks, that he could live with the pain of not having her love anymore. At least when she’s old and grey Vlad would have had the chance to make peace with her passing. At least when she’s old and grey Vlad could hold her hand and kiss her cheeks, kiss away any tears she might allow to fall, tell her how much he loved her and how much he will always love her. At least when she’s old and grey he could tell her how she had changed his life from boring and monotonous to a wonderful, wild, exciting adventure. He could tell her how much he loved her, what she had taught him about the world despite the lifetimes of experience he had on her, he could tell her that he could never truly be said again with what precious memories she had given him. When she’s old and grey and running out of her last breaths, Vlad could say goodbye to her.

 

           But not like this, never like this. Continuing to live if he lost her now, Vlad was certain that he would be as good as dead. She is not old, she is not grey, and she could have many more decades before her time came to pass. He could not live here without her. He could not live with Adrian without her. Adrian looked too much like her, too golden and soft and rich in the skin compared to his own. He could not live knowing her life had ruthlessly been cut short. He could not live knowing that Adrian would be an eternal reminder of his lost love. But he couldn’t die, not like this, not alongside his wife, not when Adrian wouldn’t know for at least a month more. He couldn’t die, couldn’t be that selfish to die. But he can’t live without her. Dears heavens and stars above, Vlad could not go on living without her.

 

           Warmth pressed itself into his cheek, and upon instinct he leaned into it, pressing his cheek into the warmth as far as flesh would allow and seeking comfort from it. A thumb swiped at the skin underneath his eyes, blood smearing and being brushed away by a gentle hand. With all of the turmoil inside of him, the contact was very welcome. It did little to soothe his fears, did little to stop his endless loops of how he must die if she dies and how he couldn’t die for Adrian’s sake, but it was grounding him to reality. At the very least his fears wouldn’t be able to crush and constrict his chest any tighter than it already was with a warm hand cupping his cheek.

 

           A hand.

 

           Sore eyes flashed open, hope seizing every fibre of his body and chasing away the rigor mortis in his spine. He looked up too fast, too quickly for the hand to follow or for his eyes to fully register until seconds after. The sight was blurred by more crimson all too quickly.

 

           “ _Lisa._ ”

 

           “Good morning, darling…”

 

           In an instant he had her hand pressed to his lips, relief overwhelming every ounce of his being and numbing any sensation that wasn’t his hands holding hers, his lips on her knuckles, the tears on his face. _She’s alive._

 

           Vlad doesn’t realize his talking, doesn’t realize that strings of ‘I love you’s are punctuating his every admittance to fear and death and wounds and his own insanity, doesn’t realize how fast he had been speaking, what language he had been speaking, until a finger presses itself to his lips. Through shuddering gulps of air he stills and silences himself, looking at her through bloodied eyes and what he can only assume is the wateriest smile he’s ever given her. The smile that graces her lips chases away every ache, every pain, every single fear that had taken such a firm hold in his body. All at once he feels like he could live again, really and truly live. _She’s alive._

 

           Warm fingers curl into the beard on his chin and tug. Vlad follows the pull until his lips brush against hers and all over again relief floods every response. The kiss is long and chaste, nothing but a gentle slide of lips against lips, until Lisa sinks back into the bed and breaks the kiss. The tears haven’t stopped, but they fall for a far different reason now. Once more the hand that had gripped him by the beard wipes away at the tears, his face undoubtedly looking something again to a painted disaster. The weak chuckle that escapes Lisa confirms that yes, he must looks positively ridiculous and simultaneously awful, but it only strengthens his grin and his tears.

  
           “Welcome home, my love…”   
  
           Vlad is certain now that, no matter the state of her wounds, he never should have doubted Lisa’s will to persist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I uh... Took more than a week to finish this one OJIHUGYFTDR. But hey! This is my first actually completed multi-chapter fic! And I hope y'all really enjoyed it! I've been considering putting up my outline on a epilogue chapter just because I think it's super interesting to see how the actual fic went in comparison to the outline! Maybe I will, later today.
> 
> Thank you all so much for the really nice comments you left me, thank you all so much for sticking around for this 2 month wait for the final chapter, and forgive me if there's a small mistake in this chapter somewhere. It is A LOT to edit. It's like.... 10.5k words? Certainly bigger than any chapter I've ever done, but this was the final chapter and I just had so much to cover afdsgfh.
> 
> Thank you all again so much for reading! It truly means the world to me!


	4. The Outline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exactly what the title of the chapter says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been about 2 months since I last looked at this fic, and I still occasionally see people are leaving kudos and that people are still reading it, and that absolutely makes my gay lil heart sing. And like I mentioned 2 months ago, I've finally decided to post my outline here as a "bonus chapter". Granted everything is how it was when I wrote the outline, and not everything is written into the fic as it was planned in the outline. But I still think that it's fun to look at the differences between my outline and how my fic actually played out. So enjoy my outline, typos and commentary and all!

~We gonna start this off with a lil bit of canon dialogue tbh, Lisa crying out into the night, begging Vlad not to hurt anyone who was watching her burn. Vlad can’t hear her rn but she calls and cries out anyways. Vlad will be along shortly though. Thats all im throwin into this prologue

 

~immediate jump to mr vladimir, berating himself for allowing himself to feel things he knew he shouldn’t have been feeling. Feelings of love and joy and the ever detestable human excitement.

 

~in his hand he holds a small bouquet of her favourite flowers, and hoisting his bag he thinks about the gifts he had bought her on his tireless travels. A small set of flasks and vials, a new copy of her favourite weathered book, and some perfectly preserved flora not found in wallachia to be used in her medicinal adventures

 

~add in a new set of beratements for not waiting to travel during the night for the past week because he is just so excited to see his wife again, to show her what he had brought for her and to tell her of his travels. He regrets his puppy like excitement to see her again, and the fierce headaches brought on by non stop travel, but he just really really really wants to show her what hes been doing and how hes been doing. Also to smooch her, cause thats what husbands and wives do when they’ve been apart for a while

 

~mr vladimiro is like, almost to his house when he starts to notice some fuckin shit through the haze of being a fucking sap and loving his wife and like, immediately is he running cause he smells smoke and fire and burning chemicals and wood and paint and holy fuck please let that not be their house

 

~surprise bitch its your house. Mr vladimiro reaches the house to find it engulfed in an inferno, but it had to have been obvious at that point from the way orange light was dancin between the trees surrounding their house. Cue the immeasurable panic and rage and absolute complete and utter fear

 

~dropping his shit mr vladimiro starts shouting lisa’s name, lookin around the clearing their house sits in and almost making a break for the blaze cause hes got pyrokinesis and he cant be hurt by it. Hes stopped however by a meek voice

 

~”Are you Mr. Tepes???” yeah he sure fuckin is. Its the elderly lady lisa was treating before the church arrived to be a fucking bastard and try to steal away lisa for a good old fashioned burning. Mr vladimiro whips around to look at her and without missing a beat he almost screams “wheres my wife  wheres lisa where is she”

 

~the lil ol lady begins to say that the church had taken her away to be burned but mr vladimiro is on her in an instant, hands hovering over her shoulders as he just barely manages to restrain himself from grabbing her shoulders and squeezing with his god awful vamp strength. Hes trying really hard to not hurt one of the people he recognizes as lisa’s patients from her letters to him

 

~after a very startling two seconds and another prompting of “where is my wife” this time with the Feels, she tells him that they must be setting up her trial at targoviste right now and honestly that’s all mr vladimiro needs to hear before hes leaping into action

 

~mr vladimiro grabs his lil bag and immediately fucks off in a blast of pyrokinesis, leavin the poor ol woman there as the house continues to burn, her crucifix in hand and looking absolutely fucking Shooketh by the fact that lisa is in fact married to actual fucking satan. But no matter, mr vladimiro isnt about to let anything happen normally now cause he too is fucking Shooketh

 

~okay ho you gotta decide on this shit now: pull adrian through the mirror? Have mr vladimiro just appear like a bat outta hell ((all puns intended)) at the burning? Have actual bats outta hell? Make a decision ho cause one way or another its gotta happen lisa’s gotta come down from that stake relatively alive and with mr vladimiro ready tear many people many new ones

 

~a decision has been made kinda, the vague idea is to have mr vladimiro just descend in on the square in a flash of fire and fury, hitting the ground so hard before the stake of which lisa is burning on that an enormous gust of wind pretty my smothers the fire long enough for mr vladimiro to see that yes his wife still lives. There is no joy though. Mr vladimiro is mcfuckin PISSED

 

~mr vladimiro fuckin launches at the stake as fast as he can before anyone can do anything, and the top of the stake cracks and begins to fall. Mr vladimiro is havin none of it because in a well trained instant hes slashed through the ropes and hes suddenly on the ground before the targoviste church, no longer aflame, bag strapped to his back, and lisa held like a bride in his arms against his chest. He turns to the crowd facing the broken stake and demolished bonfire with a fury unlike any other.

 

~fuck decisions ill make one later and adjust this next bit to how i see fit but mr vladimiro now has his hands on his sweet baboo and with her vaguely safe he has to decide on whether or not he will turn his rage onto the people gathered here today or to retreat and flee with lisa to tend to her wounds because burns this bad are very difficult to treat when infected, especially in this day and age of 1475

 

~lil lisa is on the verge of just straight up passing out but she still manages to grab the front of his stupid white undershirt and beg him, coughing on her own breaths, to spare these people, they dont know what they’re doing, they’re just scared and unknowledgeable and they shouldn’t be punished for what they’ve done. Lisa promptly passes the fuck out. Mr vladimiro’s heart beats once in his chest in pure agony and love for this human he holds, but her words are not enough

 

~mr vladimiro makes a decision he absolutely fucking knows lisa will hate but his rage is very real and very intense so like the bastard he is he just basically summons whatever demons he can to just absolutely fucking massacre those who were gathered to watch his beautiful ray of sunshine burn like she was nothing more than the demons that scramble to murder them all before the church. Using his vampire powers, mr vladimiro takes out the bishop himself in a huge fucking ball of fire.

 

~mr vladimiro makes a not-so-hasty hasty escape with his sweetest gal held to his chest and he just like, speed walks all the way home to Castlevania, leaving the demons to make sure no one who was present for the burning be allowed to remain alive, and boy does the church run red that day

 

~we gonna make an executive decision right here and say we makin a fast ass jump to when mr vladimiro has tended to his sweet baboo and hes just stuck there by her side, his bag of adventure stuff forgotten at the floor near the desk in the room and him sitting in a chair beside her bed, head in his hands and elbows on the bed and dear fucking gods it hurts him to not know if she’ll pass if he allows himself to sleep so he cant fucking sleep but  _ he needs to fucking sleep hes been awake for at least a week straight now and everything is swimming _

 

~depending on my decision for how mr vladimiro shows the fuck up we can have adrian take his sweet time returning from, gods i dunno, name a western country.

 

~with my decision made mr vladimiro has to sit and suffer beside his suffering wife because adrian too was convinced to travel as a man does and have experiences that he never had as a floating vampire jesus so he’s probably like a solid two weeks or something from returning from name a western country. Mr vladimiro, while always willing to stay by his wife’s side as shes in pain and suffering, cant help but remember the look of the burns on her legs and tum, the way her face contorted even through unconsciousness as he treated her, the way she was just absolutely horribly ruined by people who had taken her and her abilities for granted.

 

~mr vladimiro is in tears. Rich, red, thick, bloody tears. He cant even bother to wipe them away cause he’s too busy holding onto lisa’s hand and pressing his forehead to her knuckles and kissing each knuckle and wishing, hoping, begging, praying that she wakes up and heals fast and shows him that shes really and truly alive and not just a very possible illusion from his own madness at potentially losing one of the only loves of his life. The bedspread is slowly turning red

 

~mr vladimiro cries for a solid few hours, crying until he can feel his eyes sting and his throat raw from restraining sobs and his muscles aching from hunching and tensing and just absolutely fucking crying. The bedspread beneath him is pretty much sopping with blood, and he damn well knows through his own grieving that bloody bedspreads on someone who is still so injured and susceptible to infection is a very bad idea. Mr vladimiro pulls himself together just long enough to remove the bedspread, replace it with another clean one, and take the bedspread out of the room

 

~the entire time mr vladimiro is out of the room his wife sleeps in hes worried and high strung and absolutely not in the mood to deal with anything. The bedspread is put into the laundry room for one of the many night creature servants he has to do the menial shit, and he pretty much rushes to the kitchen to grab a bucket of cool water and a handful of rags and cloths and things. Absently he grabs a towel as well. He can already feel his cheeks becoming wet with more bloody tears. More bandages are retrieved from the labs.

 

~being not at all encumbered by his load, mr vladimiro rushes as fast as the bucket of water will allow him, shuffling back to the room his wife rests in. hes very much heartbroken and yet incredibly relieved to find that she has not moved from when he had left, and that she was still asleep. Once more he begs the universe to allow his perfect lisa to awaken and prove to him he is not mad

 

~the entire time he prepares all of his assembled items, mr vladimiro is in full blown tears. Like bloody tears everywhere, all over the floor. He does his best to not get any of his blood in the cool water or on the rags, and every minute he looks up to check on his darling wife. Still nothing. 

 

~i am making the executive decision right now that we are goin on a timeskip again and this time we’re with lisa’s pov as the poor girl suffers a restless sleep and what could be a trauma induced coma

 

~lisa is suffering even in her sleep now. She recalls having a relatively peaceful slumber for some amount of time that she’s not fully aware of but now she’s starting to feel her pain through her slumber and even as her body works to keep her asleep she knows she has to wake up and try to tend to herself even though its most likely impossible and more likely that she’s dead

 

~as she slowly comes back from slumber, lisa fuckin begins to remember sitting in someone’s arms, and the incredible chill and heat from the air and her flesh, and oh yeah shes remembering how she in fact did not die that day and is now probably safe at home with her family

 

~its at the thought of her family that lisa finally opens her eyes, but she’s stuck staring at the ceiling for some undetermined amount of time trying to process what the fuck she’s got to do first. Vaguely she realizes that she must have been administered some kind of pain killer and while the effects are beginning to wear off she’s also still a lil fucked up over it. She decides she can wait until the effects of it wear off completely before she starts trying anything. Shes also a lil sleeby so shes just gonna rest for a lil bit.

 

~lisa’s got no way to know how long its been since she woke up but as the medicine finally wears off completely she realizes she can hear a soft dripping sound, almost like rain on a soaked scrap of cloth. Thinking about just how fucking weird rain is indoors, lisa turns her head towards the source of the sound and is greeted with a sight she never thought she would ever see in her life

 

~there he is, mr vladimiro, sitting at her bedside with his hands clenched tightly in his lap, eyes closed and body stiff and hes not wearing his usual drama queen edgelord style and is instead in his white shirt and black trousers like hes been working hard, and his head is tilted down and blood is pretty much just running from beneath his eyelids.

 

~she realizes that hes leaned closer to the bed, and that there is a folded towel beneath his head where the blood from his eyes falls and it is pretty much sopping with blood, and thats why theres that soft water-on-wet-cloth sound. It twists her fucking heart to see him like that and she cant help herself when she raises a hand to cup mr vladimiro’s cheek and gently  rub away the blood that’s staining his cheek with her thumb

 

~we’re gonna make an excellent cut to mr vladimiro’s pov now and this is the reprieve he’s allowed himself. Hes not sleeping or resting or anything like that, but hes sitting in silence with his eyes closed and head bowed and the towel beneath him is becoming increasingly soggier the longer he sits hunched and crying but he just cant fucking stop himself

 

~absently he admits to himself that this is the most scared hes ever been in his undead life. No fear for when it comes to arrows and bolts and knives and silver and swords and shit, but the thought of losing lisa???? He absolutely cannot handle it and it only makes him cry harder because he realizes just how much he loves her and how he simply would not be able to live should she pass away before him now and he would much rather be dead than go on living without her here by his side.

 

~as another absent thought he realizes that him dying would be incredibly selfish and unfair to adrian, who would not know of the matter for at least another week, and while leaving his baby boy alone is not something he wants to do he just cannot bear the thought of living without having said a proper goodbye and farewell to his beloved wife, his only wife, the only wife he’ll ever allow himself to have again. He thinks that maybe, when shes old and grey and 80 and running out of breath that he’ll have made peace with her dying, that he would have had enough time to say his goodbyes to her and how much he loved her and all that jazz. But here? Now? Absolutely not and he can feel his dead heart being torn to pieces thinking that he might lose her now

 

~as mr vladimiro is running himself in circles thinking about how this cant be goddbye hes not ready to say goodbye and that he would rather off himself than say goodbye, the softest and shakiest of caresses graces his right cheek and he doesnt even realize the implications of that touch until he’s leaned into the touch and nuzzling his cheek into the hand there

 

~like a shot of fucking lightning his eyes open and he looks to lisa and he starts crying even harder cause “oh my fucking stars my wife is alive shes opened her eyes and shes touching my cheek and i cannot contain the emotions”. Cue mr vladimiro immediately grabbing his wife’s hand and pulling it from his cheek so that he can kiss her knuckles and palm and wrist and he barely even realizes that hes telling her how scared he was that she wouldn’t wake up and that he was just hallucinating and had finally gone mad

 

~he halts when the hand he’s kissed all over presses a finger to his lips and he leans in to kiss her when she tugs him down by his beard. After a relieved and short smooch he pulls away and she tells him that she’s glad to see him too. Also that her legs feel like they are on fire all over again and that instead of letting his fear get the better of him he should be going to grab another dose of pain killers and new bandages. Mr vladimiro is off like a shot after a kiss to her forehead and he can hear her weak laughter from the room as he runs to grab supplies. He doesnt thank god because fuck that bastard hes done shit for him but mr vladimiro thanks any and all other gods that may be out there because his wife lives and if that doesnt make him feel alive again he doesnt know what will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you seriously came by to check out this joke chapter you have no idea how fucking much that means to me and I hope you have the best day of your life for the rest of your life forever.
> 
> I also received a comment I forget how long ago detailing my misstep involving bibasilar crackles and I do appreciate it! I am not a trained doctor, nurse, EMT, etc, so anything I had written was absolutely from the exhausted research of a writer up at 2am adfsgdfhg. I'll be sure to redo my research and update it later when I'm not being devoured by Final Fantasy sadfgh.
> 
> Thank you all again so much for reading, commenting, bookmarking, and leaving kudos on my fic!


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